SUZUKI RACING:

Team Suzuki Alstare Brux riders Yukio Kagayama and Karl Muggeridge took things steadily in practice and qualifying today at a rain-lashed World Superbike Championship round at Nurburgring.

Qualifying was blighted by heavy rain and hailstones and the standing water on many parts of the 5.148 kilometre circuit caused many problems. In the end, Muggeridge finished 15th fastest and Kagayama 17th.
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 Muggeridge – 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.”

Yukio Kagayama – 17th, 2; 14.214:

“I did not want to take any chance or do anything stupid in the rain, so I was steady in both practice and qualifying. There was a lot of water in many places on the track and it was difficult to know the grip level in those areas so I used caution. Basically, I feel today was not so bad, but I did not have a lot of feel from the front end and that made entering the turns not so easy. I hope it is dry tomorrow because I think we can make a lot of improvement in better conditions.”