round 11 - race one
Imola, Italy - Sunday, 2 October 2005

WINSTON'S VERMEULEN WINS IN IMOLA

Chris Vermeulen won this afternoon's opening race in the eleventh round World
Superbike championship event at Imola in Italy. The 23-year-old Australian beat
his championship rival, Troy Corser, by just three tenths of a second to keep
his title hopes alive for at least one more race.

With the 21-lap race declared wet on a drying 4.9km circuit, tyre choice was
critical and Vermeulen opted for an intermediate front and slick rear. It
resulted in the fourth win in five races for the Winston Ten Kate Honda rider,
as he maintained the form shown since his double win at Assen last month. His
Australian team-mate, Karl Muggeridge, however, suffered further misfortune with
clutch failure on the opening lap.

Ronald ten Kate - team manager:

"Quite honestly, when the sun came out at the start of that race, I thought our
chance had gone because we had opted for an intermediate front and slick rear.
The lap times didn't come down as much as we expected when the track dried and
it was clear that a lot of riders got into trouble with the conditions. At the
end of the day, perhaps it wasn't such a bad tyre choice but compliments to
Chris who rode magnificently to stay ahead of Troy (Corser) who went for a slick
front. As for Karl, it's just more bad luck because his clutch probably went as
he got away from the line, meaning his race was over before it had really begun."

Chris Vermeulen - winner

"That was pretty tough and perhaps the intermediate front wasn't the wisest
choice. But it helped me get past some guys at the start of the race and I was
able to push relatively hard early on. But by mid-race distance, the track was
dry and I really started to struggle. The last few laps got a bit hairy in
places because, by then, the tyre was cooked. We're hoping not to have that
difficult tyre choice for race two because I need to win again. But those other
guys never give up so it's not going to be easy."

Karl Muggeridge - DNF

"You can probably imagine that I'm pretty disappointed. We made progress
yesterday and changed a few little things for the better this morning. I got a
reasonable start and felt good on that first lap. The bike was awesome and then.
well, that was it. I could do with a bit of luck this afternoon, for sure."

World Superbike, Imola - race one results (21 laps, 103.593km):

 1 Chris Vermeulen AUS (Winston Ten Kate Honda)  39m35.789s
 2 Troy Corser AUS (Suzuki)                         +0.297s
 3 Noriyuki Haga JPN (Yamaha)                       +8.313
 4 James Toseland GBR (Ducati)                     +15.339
 5 Steve Martin AUS (Petronas)                     +49.638
 6 Chris Walker GBR (Kawasaki)                     +50.072
 7 Max Neukirchner GER (Honda)                     +52.175
 8 Sébastien Gimbert FRA (Yamaha)                  +52.381
 9 Regis Laconi FRA (Ducati)                       +57.834
10 Gianluca Vizziello ITA (Yamaha)               +1:05.727

Championship points:

Corser                                        409
Vermeulen                                     354
Haga                                          255
Toseland                                      228
Laconi                                        221
Yukio Kagayama JPN (Suzuki)                   212
Walker                                        140
Andrew Pitt AUS (Yamaha)                      137
Pierfrancesco Chili ITA (Honda)               125
Lorenzo Lanzi ITA (Ducati)                    118
Karl Muggeridge AUS (Winston Ten Kate Honda)  111