MUGGAS GRABS PROVISIONAL FRONT ROW

Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge finished today's provisional first qualifying session 2^nd fastest at the last round of the World Superbike Championship here at Magny Cours in France.

Both Winston Ten Kate riders are having a bit of a rear grip problem in the last sector, as the temperature of the 4.4 km French track is a lot different to when they tested here in June, but both are confident that there will be a solution for tomorrow mornings qualifying with the ideas the data and suspension guys have.

Muggas comments: "We are just struggling with grip on the race tyres at the moment, I tried all kind of different lines in the last split of the track but nothing really changed. The only other rider out there that seems to have the same troubles is my team-mate Chris. So that means we definitely gotta change something on our settings. We already tried a lot of things this afternoon which at the end improved the problem area but made the bike worse in the other sections of the track. So that can't be the solution, we have to find something different. I would really like to stay on that position for Sunday's race, it's been too long since I tasted some Champagne, I'm a bit thirsty for sure!"

Ronald ten Kate - team manager:"Both riders are pretty close in time but are struggling with grip problems, so we do have to rectify the bike a bit. Karl put a Q in at the end of the session and was still having the same problems. We have some work to do, but I'm sure tomorrow morning we are ready."     

Weather: sunny, morning 17° C, afternoon 23° C
Track: dry, morning 25 °C, afternoon 36° C

MUGGAS ON FRONT ROW

2^nd Qualifying
Winston Ten Kate rider Karl Muggeridge wasn't bothered to put a soft rear in this morning and qualified on 7^th position with yesterdays time for this afternoon's Superpole at the final round of the 2005 World Superbike Championship here in Magny-Cours France.

Muggeridge and the Winston Ten Kate squad are pretty happy with the progress they were making this morning and are confident that the can improve yesterdays time in Superpole.

Karl comments: "We decided to concentrate on the bike settings this morning instead of putting another qualifier in, as yesterdays time seemed to be good enough for Superpole. We tried a lot of things in this session, starting with two different bikes to yesterday. One we shortened a bit and the other one we completely changed the handling of the front. They both feel a fair bit better than yesterday, but we are not quite sure yet which one is going to be the race bike, so we will work a little bit more on that in this afternoon's free practice. I'm confident we can improve it a bit more."

Superpole:
Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge grabbed front row just 0.026 seconds behind Nori Haga after this afternoon's Superpole lap at round 12^th of the World Superbike Championship here at Magny-Cours in France.

Muggas team-mate Vermeulen lapped the French circuit in an incredible new best time of 1'39.836 and took his 3^rd pole position in front of Ducati's Lorenzo Lanzi. Bad luck seemed to be after the new Superbike World Champion Troy Corser who had problems with either the tyres or his bike and came last in Superpole, which gets him a 4^th row start on tomorrow's grid for the two 23 lap races.

Muggas comments: "Had a bit a tough afternoon today, at the beginning of the free practice I never seemed to get a clear lap and then 20 minutes into the session I lost the front going pretty quick without warning. My number one bike was wreckage after that and I had no other choice than to use the second bike for Superpole which turned out not to be too bad either. In the first right hander of the Superpole I hit a patch which took me about a meter wider than I planned and I nearly run off the track.- that was lucky. The rest went pretty good and I'm happy to be on front row for tomorrow which should be a big help. There are a few opportunities to pass around here, but I reckon it's going to be a close race, as times were pretty tied till Chris came along. It should be ok!"

Muggas 4^th in race one

Race 1:
Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge, just missed out on his first podium of the season, finishing fourth to James Toseland here at the final round of the World Superbike Championship at Magny-Cours in France.

Muggeridge fought his way back from eight place on the first of 23-laps at the 4.4 km French circuit to take third on lap ten. But after some thrilling racing and battling with Ducati's James Toseland, Muggas ran wide at the Adelaide hairpin on the final lap, allowing Toseland through.

Muggas team-mate Vermeulen broke the lap record three times on his way to an eight-second victory over Yukio Kagayama.

Ronald ten Kate - team manager: "Although Chris got into the lead early on and started to disappear, behind him we saw some fantastic racing. The scrap that Karl was involved in was all fair and square. It's a shame he couldn't climb up on the podium but we'll certainly be looking for more in race two."

Karl Muggeridge: "I just braked a little too late into the hairpin on that final lap and ran maybe two meters wide. That allowed James through and it was just too late to do anything about it. It was an eventful race early on as well, as I took out a few of the cones with my fairing along the start finish straight. I'm not sure what we can do to make the bike better though, it was great. The tire choice might maybe vary a bit depending on the temperatures we got for the second race. I enjoyed the race and hope I can enjoy race two a little more."

Race 2:
The second race here at Magny - Cours in France, saw a terrible crash right after the start that involved, Winston's Karl Muggeridge, Yamaha rider Andrew Pitt, Giovanni Bussei, Steve Martin and Da Costa. The race was red flagged; however Muggas, Bussei and Martin couldn't take part of the restart due to their injuries. 

Lorenzo Lanzi took his second victory of the season in front of Kagayama and Haga. Chris Vermeulen had to retire with 5 laps to go because of some mechanical problems with his chain and sprockets.

Karl Muggeridge comments: "I felt really good and confident for that second race, but we only traveled about 50 meters when my hands got knocked of the handle bar, as Pitt tried to cut across me. My bike shot away underneath me to the right and I tried to push of the Yamaha so my arm didn't get sucked into the bike. However the rear wheel caught my leg and I got pulled under his Bike, the last thing I remember is that something spiky drilled through the back of my head and then the next was seeing some gravel in my face. It was probably one of the worst crashes I've been involved in, I guess I was pretty lucky to get away with no bigger injuries."

Muggas ended up with a big hole of about 2 cm square in the back of his head which was most likely caused by a footrest and needed to get 14 stitches in the local hospital, plus a heavily bruised leg which he first thought was broken, a cracked right foot and a concussion. However considering the circumstances he feels already pretty good and will be fit again in about 10 days.