round 12 - race two
Magny-Cours, France - Sunday, 9 October 2005

VERMEULEN MISSES OUT ON FRENCH DOUBLE

Chris Vermeulen was denied his second winning double of the season at
Magny-Cours today when the chain jumped off the rear sprocket of his Winston Ten
Kate Honda CBR1000RR. Having won the 23-lap opener of the final World Superbike
championship round at the 4.4km French circuit, Vermeulen looked to be in
control of race two, despite the close attentions of Italy's Lorenzi Lanzi.

On lap 19, however, Vermeulen cruised to a halt at the end of pit lane,
realising that his 2005 World Superbike championship season was over. Lanzi went
on to win the race from the Japanese pairing of Yukio Kagayama and Noriyuki Haga.

The race was stopped on the first lap after Vermeulen's team-mate, Karl
Muggeridge, was involved in an incident with Andrew Pitt and three other riders.
Muggeridge was unable to make the restart, suffering a laceration to the back of
his neck that required stitches.

Ronald ten Kate - team manager:

"Chris's sprocket was damaged with one tooth particularly bad. We need to make
some further investigations but maybe some debris got in between the chain and
the sprocket, which basically cost Chris the race and his second double of the
season. With what happened to Chris, and Karl getting taken out at the start,
it's almost too much to take in for just one race, let alone the last one of the
season. Obviously, we're all disappointed that the year has ended this way but,
hopefully in about a week and a half, we'll be in a position to announce our
2006 rider line-up. Then we'll start preparing for next year."

Chris Vermeulen - DNF

"I'm not happy, that's for sure. We've only had two DNFs this season and neither
of them have been my fault. I knew there was a problem because it was jumping
for a few laps before the end, especially when I was accelerating hard. I was
just trying to slow the pace down as much as I could and would have settled for
second or third, because there was quite a big gap behind Lanzi. It's better if
that sort of thing happens on the first lap because after you've put in all that
hard work, it hurts a bit. Our season started badly and it's just ended badly,
too; but there have been a lot of high points in between and we've certainly
shown lately that we've got the bike working a lot better. It's good to hear
that Karl's OK, though."

World Superbike, Magny-Cours - race two results (23 laps, 101.453km):

 1 Lorenzo Lanzi ITA (Ducati)      39m01.858s
 2 Yukio Kagayama JPN (Suzuki)        +6.662s
 3 Noriyuki Haga JPN (Yamaha)        +10.722
 4 Troy Corser AUS (Suzuki)          +13.457
 5 Chris Walker GBR (Kawasaki)       +16.651
 6 James Toseland GBR (Ducati)       +17.005
 7 Andrew Pitt AUS (Yamaha)          +20.863
 8 Max Neukirchner GER (Honda)       +22.280
 9 Norick Abe JPN (Yamaha)           +22.713
10 Pierfrancesco Chili ITA (Honda)   +31.108

Final championship points:

Corser                                        433
Chris Vermeulen AUS (Winston Ten Kate Honda)  379
Haga                                          271
Toseland                                      254
Kagayama                                      252
Regis Laconi FRA (Ducati)                     221
Walker                                        160
Pitt                                          156
Lanzi                                         150
Chili                                         131