MUGGAS IN TOP FIVE

Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge was fifth fastest in this afternoon first qualifying session at round 3 of the World Superbike Championship here at Ricardo Tormo in Valencia.

Muggeridge was looking forward to get back on the CBR 1000 after the break and being able to start with some data from the Valencia winter test. The Winston Ten Kate team had a fair bit of new stuff to try out in the morning and seemed to make pretty good progress, but we will find out the truth after checking all the data from the today's session.

Muggas comments: "The session went ok, the track was much greasier this afternoon than in the morning and it also seemed to get more slippery as the session went on, so there was less grip which means we had to work a bit more on the chassis. We are making pretty good progress so far and there are still a few things to try out tomorrow. On my Qualifying lap I went a bit too deep into the corner and had a big front end slide which cost me bit of time, also we found out that the soft tyre didn't really do any improvements in the last split, so we will have to go through the data and check what we can do there."

MUGGAS FROM FIRST TO SECOND ROW AFTER SUPERPOLE

Karl Muggeridge, set the sixth fastest time in this afternoon Superpole session at round three of the World Superbike Championship after finishing the second qualifying session this morning in second place just 0.477 seconds behind Troy Corser. Muggas will start from the second row for tomorrow's two 23-lap (92km) races at the 4005 meters Ricardo Tormo track in Valencia Spain.

In the morning qualifying Muggas proved that he's quite comfortable with the grip the qualifiers give and was happy to be second fastest going into his second Superpole. However on the other hand they were still struggling to find a good race setting,  the bike is still coming up a little too fast as he gas' it out of corners so Karl has to wait a fraction longer before opening the throttle, which costs a lot of time.

In the afternoon free practice session Muggas had two different bikes to try out but didn't quite get comfortable with either of them to make a worthwhile improvement to the CBR1000. Which led him a bit cold into Superpole, with not really knowing what to expect.

Karl comments:

"The Superpole lap was ok, I got it about as smooth as I could but unfortunately it's dropped me back to the second row. At the moment I'm more concerned about the race settings, since we got a major problem with grip. We tried a lot of different things this afternoon, but didn't really make a big step forward so that wasn't very confidence inspiring right before Superpole. There's still a lot of work to do tonight, and I hope we find a good direction that we can try in tomorrow's warm-up."

A WEEKEND TO FORGET FOR MUGGAS

Race 1:

Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge had to take avoiding action on lap one when fellow-Honda rider, Max Neukirchner, crashed in front of him, forcing the Australian onto the gravel. Pushing hard to salvage some points, Muggeridge eventually crashed out of 20th place on lap 20 at the third round of the World Superbike Championship here in Valencia.

Muggas comments: "I couldn't believe it when Neukirchner's bike went up in the air in front of me. I've got a big black mark from one of his tyres down the back of my shoulder and had to duck to get out of its way. I guess I was lucky not to go off then but managed to get all the way through the gravel and then slid off right at the end. When I eventually got going again my lap times would have had me battling for fourth I think, and warm-up this morning told me I had a pretty good race set-up. I need some luck and hope I can find it in race two this afternoon."

Ronald ten Kate - team manager: "I feel so sorry for Karl who has had some pretty bad luck at the beginning of the season. Neukirchner crashed right in front of him and in his efforts to salvage something from the race, Karl slipped off close to the end of the race. We'll see what race two brings but I hope his luck changes now."

Race2:

Karl Muggeridge, finished a disappointing weekend by crashing out on lap 15 of the second outing whilst sitting comfortably in a strong seventh place. After a reasonable start Muggeridge decided to stay at the back of the pack to keep out of trouble and see how the race unfolds. However the luck didn't mean to be on his side this weekend and without pushing hard he lost the front and slitt off his CBR 1000.

Muggas team mate Vermeulen finished second in both races and moves up to third position in the Championship which is still lead by Troy Corser ho took another double victory this weekend.

Muggas comments: "I got a good start, didn't push too hard to pass anybody in the first few laps. I decided to stay with Nori Haga and Abe just to do the right thing and also to conserve the tiers for the end of the race. I felt really comfortable at the beginning and everything pointed into good finish with some points which I definitely needed. On lap 16^th I suddenly lost the front, I tried to save it with my knee but just couldn't keep it up. Then my feet got tangled in the bike and if wasn't a very pleasant feeling. I really hope my unlucky strike will have an end with this weekend and we get on top of everything."

Ronald ten Kate - team manager:"I'm disappointed for Karl again as his weekend has been even harder. We'll have to try and find out what caused his crash but it's a shame that he wasn't able to bring his bike home for some valuable and well-deserved points. We'll regroup and study all the data to make sure that we're fighting for more podium positions at Monza."