World SuperSport 2001 - Round 1 - Quotes
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Karl Muggeridge - "It was difficult out there today, but I followed the team manager's instructions, didn't do anything silly and brought the bike home. It's a long, long season ahead and if I had pushed harder I might have crashed and that would have meant nil points! This series is so competitive that you need to score in every round if you want to have a chance of the title. We know that the Suzuki is not near its potential yet. It's new bike and we know we have to work on it to be a title contender, but I think we're all sure that it is definitely capable of challenging. I made quite a good start in the race, but I found that I couldn't pull away from some of the other riders. Their bikes seemed to have more grunt out of the turns then mine and that hurt us today. As the race wore on and the fuel level in the tank dropped, the weight distribution changed and I found it harder to keep the front end where I wanted it in the turns. Later in the race the tyres started to go off a little, but they weren't too much of a drama. No, I'm actually not too disappointed today. I didn't crash though it was a near thing when Casoli hit my thigh got some points in the bag and we've improved the bike in time for the next round at Phillip
Island."
Riba said. "This is a very special day for me. I knew I could win the race and to win my home race is very special. The new CBR Sport is very strong as standard but Ten Kate have put in a huge effort and I thank them, they deserve this win." Vermeulen explained: "We had an overheating problem and there was a fine spray of water coming from the radiator. Going into a slow left-hand corner a big splash hit my visor. I was distracted, missed my braking point then turned in and the front wheel tucked under. Someone hit me in turn one and bent my gear lever so I was struggling a little bit to get through the gears. I'm very disappointed not to have finished but I'm in one piece. We've got some work to do on the engine before the next round so I'm confident everything will improve." Andrew Pitt - "Qualifying is what hurt us here (at Valencia). We lost 10-seconds on the leaders in the first five laps because when you start in the middle of the pack it's a battle to get through all the traffic. I made a good start, but a couple of guys propped in the first corner and everyone had to hit the brakes. Once things settled down I was able to do good, consistent lap times, and we picked up quite a few places in the last few laps. The Kawasaki was much better in the race, compared to qualifying, although we're struggling with a lack of front-end grip. I can't get the bike into the turns as fast as I'd like, but this race was a good test and I think we can fix the problem. Our (Dunlop) tyres seemed to be in better shape than some of the others near the end. The main thing we've got to do is improve in qualifying. We started way back here and almost made the top 10. If we can start in the top 10 then I think we can be really competitive." |
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