WSB Rd. 6, Misano, Italy, Saturday 25th June, 2005

Weather: sunny, morning 30 ° C, afternoon 33 ° C
Track: dry, morning 46° C, afternoon 52° C

Winston Ten Kate rider Karl Muggeridge qualified in 8th position for this afternoon’s Superpole event after a couple of mistakes on his fast lap in this mornings qualifying session of the 6th round of the World Superbike Championship here at Misano in Italy.

Muggas isn’t too concerned about that at the moment, he’s trying to concentrate more on finding some better settings that will give him more grip in this hot conditions. The times on the race tyre were respectable and Muggas was holding fourths position before the Q’s got put in.

Karl comments: “This morning we worked a bit more on the settings and bike has slightly improved from yesterday but we didn’t really get everything exactly were we wanted. In the afternoon’s free practice we’ll try out some different tyres to see if we can improve the grip. I made a couple of mistakes in my qualifying lap, so that would explain why we didn’t go any faster, but the gird want be decided till after Superpole. “

Superpole: Winston Ten Kate Honda rider Karl Muggeridge improved his grid position by four places and three tenth and jumped up to the front row in this afternoon’s Superpole lap. The track temperature was boiling with 52°C and didn’t leave a lot of grip for the guys, nevertheless Muggas took three tenths of his fastest lap time and if it wasn’t too the last split we might have even seen him further up.

Muggas comments: “I’ve been very careful with accelerating and tried not to make any mistakes on the Superpole lap, it was pretty good and I’m happy enough with front row. In the free practice session this afternoon we tried a lot of things again, different shocks and fronts, and the bike got improved again by a fraction. The race set-up isn’t too bad, we made a small change again just before Superpole and it seems like it worked, it was my fastest lap all weekend.”

Troy Corser will start tomorrow’s 25 lap race from pole position with Muggas team-mate Vermeulen in second and Laconi in third. It’s going too be a couple of very difficult races tomorrow with the temperatures down here for the machinery, tyres and riders.