MUGGAS 5^th FASTEST ON DAY ONE

Winston Ten Kate rider Karl Muggeridge set the fifth fastest time in the opening qualifying session of round two of the World Superbike Championship here at Phillip Island in Australia.

Muggas who is enjoying the home round and the great weather so far here at Phillip Island, improved his lap times continuously as the day went on and he got the bike knowing better around this high speed and technical track.

At the end of the morning session the Winston Ten Kate Squad tried a different fork setting, which seemed to go around the corners better, but didn't feel as nice as the other one. So in the afternoon after trying both settings on different tyres, they came to the conclusion that they need to work a bit harder on the front suspension and find something in between the two forks to get a better feed back.

Karl comments: "My first lap here on a Superbike this morning was really funny! I came down the start-finish straight thinking: 'When is this thing going to stop accelerating?' It was kind of mad and makes the 600 feel like you could make a cup of tea going down the straight. The power lifts the front wheel as you go over the crest and then the wind wants to send it sideways so it's kind of interesting! The bike's great, the brakes are working quite well, we just need to get the front suspension dialled in a bit better. We worked on two different forks today, of which one feels nice but doesn't go around the corner that well where as the other one turns really well but I don't like the feel of it. So we basically have to find a combination of the two of them for tomorrow."

Team Manager Ronald Ten Kate is extremely happy with the steps forward they made today, also he would have liked the times to be a bit closer to provisional pole position he's aware that his two riders didn't had a chance to test here during the winter season unlike some other teams.

MUGGAS TAKES 6^TH POSITION IN HIS FIRST SUPERPOLE

Winston Ten Kate Honda rider Karl Muggeridge will start tomorrow's 22 lap race from 2^nd row on the grid here at round two of the World Superbike Championship. Muggas took 6^th set the sixth fastest time in his first ever Superpole at his home round at Phillip Island in Australia.

With Japanese rider, Yuko Kagayama, setting the fastest time, fellow Aussie Steve Martin took second place and the German newcomer to Superbike Max Neukirchner surprised everybody with a third in front of this weekend's favourite Troy Corser.

In the morning qualifying session Muggas and his team tried out the new forks they prepared overnight and everything seems to be on a good way, all it needs is a bit of fine tuning and she should be all right. So they decided to save their Q tyre for the afternoon free practice to get a better feel and preparation for the Superpole, which must have paid out.

Muggas comments: "The Superpole lap was ok, it was just a matter to stay as smooth as possible. I got a bit excited at first, but once you are on the lap it's just a normal qualifying lap. Although, I gotta say, it was great to have the whole track for myself and being able to just concentrate on going as fast as you can with no obstacles on the way. The fundamentals of the bike are working pretty well, the race settings are getting better and better after the small changes we made in the afternoon, so it should be fine. I'm hoping for a good start so I can get away with the front pack which always helps."

Ronald Ten Kate: "Superpole is always an event in itself and I was very pleased with the way Karl handled his first, after a wet session at the first round in Qatar. He managed to improve his qualifying time by 0.8 second and moved up to the second row. Now we'll concentrate on tomorrow's two races for which I believe we have solved the puzzle of setting up the bike here. We'll confirm a couple of things in warm-up tomorrow morning and I'm confident we can be up at the front in the races."

MUGGAS 8TH IN RACE ONE WITH A SPILL IN THE SECOND

Race 1:
Winston Ten Kate Honda rider Karl Muggeridge finished 8th after briefly climbing to fourth position on lap seven in race one at  round two of the WSB Championship at a breezy Phillip Island in Australia.

Muggas didn't start the day very lucky. A high speed crash on his first lap in the wet warm up session this morning, didn't allow him to go back out as he choose to recover in time for the race instead.  Muggas got a bit an average start from his 6th grid position put was able to work his way up to 4th at some stage, however could hold the pace with the way the CBR was handling.

Muggas comments: "That was one of the toughest races I've ever done. Our settings just didn't work today, not sure if it was the gusty winds or the tyre combinations we choose. But I had to push like mad to make it around the corners, which was hard on the tyres. I'm glad I finished 8th and got a few points, as I had to be so careful that I didn't crash every lap. Obviously I would have liked to go much better and we for sure had the potential but the crash in the morning warm didn't help the situation either."

Race 2:

The second Race at Phillip Island didn't go any better for Winston Ten Kate's Karl Muggeridge with a crash into the hairpin on lap 6 and no points to take home the Australian was quite disappointed after his home round.

Muggas got a better start to begin with but couldn't keep the drive to get away as the front lifted up and he dropped back into 13^th position, which put him in a bad spot right away with everybody fighting really hard to get back to the front. But the team made some changes to the CBR 1000 after the first race and the bike was handling so much better so Muggeridge felt confident for good race with a solid result until the fatal incident.

Muggas comments: "We went all a bit hot into the hairpin, James flew passed me, so I broke hard, suddenly he pulled it across in front of me and left me absolutely no room, I tried as good as I could to lean away from him to avoid him, but then the bike picked itself up and I had no choice than to let go without smashing myself up. It was really unfortunate that my CBR landed on the back of Toseland's. I feel really sorry for him, but it was a shitty situation and I had nowhere to go. Other than that I felt quite happy out there, the bike felt heeps better than in the race before and I had a good time."

Half way through the race rain started to come in, and so it had to be stopped with a wet race restart, which was won overall by Troy Corser with his team-mate Kagayama in second and Honda's youngster Neukirch in third.