World Superbike Championship - Lausitzring test
Wednesday 20 - Thursday 21 July 2005

RAIN CURTAILS WINSTON TEST IN GERMANY

Rain on Thursday at Lausitzring in Germany cut-short a scheduled two-day Winston
Ten Kate Honda test at the Eurospeedway circuit, limiting the team to just one
full day on Wednesday. Chris Vermeulen and Karl Muggeridge used race rubber
throughout the day, testing different chassis components and suspension settings
to improve race performance.

Ronald Ten Kate - team manager:

"Wednesday was good, as we tried a lot of different components and settings to
further our development of the Honda CBR1000RR and to try to get more
consistency on used race tyres. Everything went well, with Chris posting the
fastest unofficial time of 1m40.1s comparing to Troy Bayliss's 2002 lap record
of 1m39.7s. Unfortunately, we only managed to get in a few laps on Thursday
morning before it began to drizzle and then rain more heavily. We had a lot of
other stuff to test on day two and lots of work to get through but, being unable
to try anything useful, we packed up early to prepare for the next round at
Brands Hatch."

Chris Vermeulen - best time, 1m40.1s (on race tyres):

"The first day at Lausitzring was really good and we played with a lot of
different things on the bike. At the Magny-Cours test we had a lot of different
Pirellis to test but this time round we just went through everything on standard
race tyres. We worked on rear shocks, linkages, geometry, front forks - the
whole chassis really. We learned a lot more about how the bike behaves and
performs on the same tyres with different settings, so it was really useful. I
only did about 15 laps on Thursday but that was enough to find out that the
circuit is incredibly slippery in the wet. They use it a lot for car races and
there is lots of rubber on the surface."

Karl Muggeridge - best time, 1m41.1s (on race tyres):

"Everything went pretty good really and we definitely found a better way with
the rear set-up, which allowed us to find more grip and durability in race
situations. I only used two-and-a-half sets of race tyres on Wednesday, when I
did about 100 laps. We just tried to maintain a good pace right the way through
a race distance. The direction we found works pretty good and we'll definitely
be able to take it to Brands Hatch. We'll still have some work to do on the
front there because we had to cut the test short. Between now and then I'm going
to take a little holiday in Greece - give me a Greek salad, a deck-chair and
some sun, and I'm happy!"

Eurospeedway, Lausitzring (4.265km) Unofficial times:

Chris Vermeulen (Winston Ten Kate Honda)  1m40.1s
Regis Laconi (Ducati)                     1:40.4
Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati)                    1:40.5
James Toseland (Ducati)                   1:40.9
Chris Walker (Kawasaki)                   1:41.2
Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda)  1:41.2

2002 fastest race lap

Troy Bayliss (Ducati) 1:39.679