1st Qualifying, Friday 4th September 2009

Weather: rain, hail 13°C Track: wet 13°C

Muggas takes things steadily in poor conditions at Nürburgring

Team Suzuki Alstare Brux stand-in rider Karl Muggeridge took things steadily in practice and qualifying today at a rain-lashed Nürburgring.

The afternoon qualifying was blighted by heavy rain and hailstones and the standing water at many parts of the 5.148 kilometre circuit caused many problems. In the end, Karl finished 15th fastest but would surely have improved had he not crashed out five minutes from the end.  Jonathan Rea (Honda) splashed his way to the day’s quickest lap, with fellow Briton Tom Sykes (Yamaha) second and Aussie Troy Corser (BMW) third.

Karl - 15th, 2:14.073

Despite the conditions, today has been good and it has been great working with this bunch of guys and I’m happy how the day went. My biggest problem today was entering the corners and every time it felt like the back end was coming round. But we have some solutions to try tomorrow and we’ll see what happens then. This track has two different parts - an old part and a newer part - and the interesting thing is that the grip feels better in the old part! There was a lot of standing water around this afternoon and when I crashed it was when the back came round suddenly at a downhill corner. I managed to save it at first, but then the front gripped and I was down. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt, but it has given the mechanics some extra work to do on the bike.

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2nd Qualifying & Superpole, 5th September 2009

Weather: cloudy, morning 13°C, afternoon 16°C Track: morning, dry, 13°C, afternoon dry 22°C

MUGGAS 8^TH BEFORE SUPERPOLE

Karl Muggeridge (Suzuki Alstare Brux) qualified in 8^th position in this morning’s second qualifying session here at round 11 of the World Superbike Championship at Nürburgring in Germany.

Muggas and his new team were pretty happy with the progress they made since yesterday and were looking hopeful for a top ten starting grid.

In the afternoon Superpole, things didn’t go to plan though, and Muggas couldn’t get a clear lap in and got knocked out in the first session and therefore will have to start tomorrow’s two 20 lap races from row five.

Muggas comments: I’m really disappointed with my Superpole session. We should have been able to maintain our 8^th starting position from the morning. We played a lot on the electronics in the afternoon free practice and that confused me a little bit so instead of going out with the bunch and try to do my lap time straight away I tried to make it by myself and then as that didn’t work, I tried to get back in the group but got hold up a couple of times by others. So you can say I made a real mess of it.”

2nd Qualifying Results
#	Name (Team)	Time
1.	Haga N. (JPN) Ducati 1098R	1'56.394
2.	Spies B. (USA) Yamaha YZF R1	1'56.489
3.	Fabrizio M. (ITA) Ducati 1098R	1'56.549
4.	Rea J. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR	1'56.785
5.	Sykes T. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R1	1'56.950
6.	Byrne S. (GBR) Ducati 1098R	1'57.043
7.	Checa C. (ESP) Honda CBR1000RR	1'57.323
8.	Muggeridge K. (AUS) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9	1'57.401
9.	Haslam L. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR	1'57.506
10.	Parkes B. (AUS) Kawasaki ZX 10R	1'57.532

Race Results, 6th September 200

Weather: sunny, R1: 16°C, R2: 16°C Track: R1:, dry, 22°C, R2: dry 22°C

 MUGGAS HAPPY WITH PROGRESS

Suzuki Alstare Brux stand-in rider Karl Muggeridge finished race one in 12th position while he slit off in the second race in 11^th position with 7 laps to go here at round eleven of the World Superbike Championship here at Nürburgring in Germany

In the first race Muggeridge moved into 11^th position by lap one from his 17^th starting grid and was feeling comfortable with the bike. On lap 12 DFX’s  Ducati blew up right in front of Muggas with so much smoke that he couldn’t see anything and run straight into the back of Nieto. It took Muggeridge a of couple laps to recover, but the tiers got scarred in the incident and he didn’t had much side grip anymore for the rest of the race, so bringing it home in 12^th wasn’t too bad after all.

In the second race, the Alstare Suzuki Brux squad made some changes to the bike and Muggas lap-time’s improved straight away by about four tenths. Muggeridge worked his way up to 10^th position by lap ten but some adjustments to the electronics pushed him off the track and unfortunately he slid off with seven laps to go.

Muggas comments: “It was pretty difficult from 17^th qualifying position getting into the first corner. After I got through a few guys where holding me up but then I made the same lap times as 6^th and 7^th position and I was making catching progress through the race.  After lap 10 I adjusted the engine brakes on the electronics and made a mistake so the bike started to push me off the track. My fault really - I didn’t understand correctly the electronics as we didn’t have much time this weekend to go through everything. It’s a shame we had to end the weekend like this, I really enjoyed riding the bike and working with the Suzuki Alstare team and we made some good progress over the three days and our lap times were good too. Hopefully we get some more dry track time in Imola so I can understand the bike and specially the electronic system a bit better and of course a better qualifying position would help too.”

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Race 2 Results
#	Name (Team)	Time
1.	Rea J. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR	39'01.561
2.	Spies B. (USA) Yamaha YZF R1	+0.786
3.	Checa C. (ESP) Honda CBR1000RR	+4.993
4.	Biaggi M. (ITA) Aprilia RSV4 Factory	+8.191
5.	Haslam L. (GBR) Honda CBR1000RR	+10.907
6.	Corser T. (AUS) BMW S1000 RR	+17.152
7.	Kiyonari R. (JPN) Honda CBR1000RR	+19.473
8.	Sykes T. (GBR) Yamaha YZF R1	+19.721
9.	Fabrizio M. (ITA) Ducati 1098R	+22.981
10.	Kagayama Y. (JPN) Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K9	+24.161