Supersport - Monza

[elephino]

Brave victory for battered Vermeulen at Monza

Despite going into the race with badly damaged ligaments in his right
thumb from his Friday crash, Australian Chris Vermeulen won by a massive
margin of 9.1 seconds on his Ten Kate Honda CBR600RR at Monza in the
World Supersport championship.

"I don't know how I did that," said Vermeulen, obviously in a great deal
of pain from his injury after a gruelling race. "I got a great start
and when I saw my board a couple of laps later I couldn't believe how
far ahead I was. My team worked really hard all weekend to give me this
victory -- as did the guys in the Clinica Mobile! Pirelli came up with
some brilliant tyres once again and the WP guys gave me a great raced
set up. All I had to do was hang onto the bike for the race distance!"

Vermeulen didn't realise at the time that his team mate Karl Muggeridge
had been forced to retire. "I didn't think I'd done anything differently
at the start," said Muggeridge after the race. "But when we looked at
the data it seems I burnt the clutch out making my start for the warm up
lap."

Muggeridge can take heart from his performance this weekend having
dominated qualifying and only missing out in the race because of a small
mechanical problem.

Team manager Ronald ten Kate was full of praise for both his riders,
"I'm delighted and I must admit somewhat amazed to see Chris win like
that. There was a time this weekend when it looked like Chris wouldn't
even be fit to race. Not only did he ride but he took the victory in
fantastic style and increased his championship lead to 29 points.

"I consider Karl as a winner also this weekend," added ten Kate. "He
may have had some bad luck in the race but he proved to everybody
in qualifying that he is a real force in the World Supersport
championship."


World Supersport Championship
Round Four, Monza Italy
16-17-18 May 2003

Race result and best lap times
1, C Vermeulen, AUS, Ten Kate Honda, 1m 52.635
2, J VD Goorbergh, NED, Yamaha, 1m 53.417
3, I MacPherson, GBR, Van Zon Honda TKR, 1m 53.564
4, S Chambon, FRA, Suzuki, 1m 53.544
5, F Foret, FRA, Kawasaki, 1m 53.454
6, S Charpentier, FRA, Honda, 1m 53.694
7, C Kellner, GER, Yamaha, 1m 53.317
8, A Corradi, ITA, Yamaha, 1m 53.639
9, P Riba, ESP, Kawasaki, 1m 53.722
10, K Fujiwara, JPN, Suzuki, 1m 53.605

K Muggeridge, AUS, Ten Kate Honda, DNF

[gomick]

chris kicked there butt - spewing for muggeridge, he just isnt having any luck
why are ten kate so good

[f1manoz]

Great to see Vermeulen do well. That kid's got bucketloads of talent.

But I'm also happy to see Jurgen do well. I've always been a supporter of his and it's nice to see him able to show his talents that he just wasn't able to show in MotoGP.

Is it just me or is Supersport producing far superior racing compared to WSBK?

[gomick]

its not just you f1manoz, 600cc bikes from the 4 factories are very even - except for the pace of ten kate honda's .....

[racer69]

Usually the Supersports produce the better races, have done for years, though at Monza the roles where reversed in my opinion.