2010 World Superbike Championship - Round 1 Phillip Island, AUS - Sunday, 28th February 2010 Races Circuit: 4,445 kms. Crowd: 65,500 (3-day) Weather conditions: Dry, sunny/cloudy 18- 20 C. Track temperature: 25 - 31 C.

PAIR OF TOP NINE FINISHES FOR TROY

Troy started this year’s Superbike World Championship with two solid top nine finishes at Phillip Island today. He took a hard-fought for ninth in race one and then improved to finish seventh in race two. But almost more importantly, Troy felt comfortable with bike in race two for the first time this year and is now looking forward to continuing that feeling in the next race in Portimao at the end of March. Briton Leon Haslam (Suzuki) won the first race, by the narrowest of margins - just four thousandths of a second separated him and Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) at the flag. Third was Noriyuki Haga (Ducati), with Jonathan Rea (Honda) fourth - some way behind. Haslam led the last lap of race two, but Spaniard Carlos Checa (Ducati) dived underneath him at the bottom of Lukey Heights and held on to take the win. Third was Fabrizio, with Sylvain Guintoli (Suzuki) fourth. Troy - Race 1: 9th, Race 2: 7th I suppose you could say I am half happy. I wasn’t so happy with the first race because we struggled a bit with the settings of the bike and the way the tyre worked. I wasn’t comfortable on the bike and didn’t feel confident about pushing it. The last thing I wanted to do was crash in the first race and mess up the second. We made some changes to the settings and balance of the bike for race two and the tyre felt much more consistent and I could actually race the bike! I haven’t felt that recently and so it was a good feeling to get to that situation again and just focus on the racing. I think my results today, particularly race two, were important for the team, but I wanted more. I know that there is more to come and the good news is that we have discovered a lot of useful info about which directions to take and hopefully we will see the fruits of all this work in the next race in Portimao. I feel sorry for Ruben today, because he has lost some of his confidence with all the crashes he had yesterday. He had a heavy fall in the morning warm-up today and it was decided that he sat out the races. I think this was the right decision and I hope he will be back and fighting fit for the next round. As a team we are further forward than last year. Our lap times are faster than last year. We have a lot more experience under our belts and although there is still lots to do, I think that the new technician (Max) is already working very well with the team and coming up with ideas and some solutions. Physically I felt pretty good after the second race, so good that I think I could’ve done another one! I have been training a lot recently and although I’m staying in Australia for a few weeks, my trainer friend Kayo and our BMW doctor have worked out a programme for me and that’s what I will be doing, as well as spending time with my family and friends of course. See ya, Troy

Results and points

Results Race 1: 1 Haslam (GBR-Suzuki), 2 Fabrizio (ITA-Ducati), 3 Haga (JPN-Ducati) 4 Rea (GBR-Honda), 5 Biaggi (ITA-Aprilia), 6 Guintoli (FRA-Suzuki), 9 TROY CORSER (AUS-BMW Motorrad Motorsport),,,, Race 2: 1 Checa (ESP-Ducati), 2 Haslam , 3 Fabrizio, 4 Guintoli, 5 Haga, 6 Rea, 7 TROY CORSER (AUS-BMW Motorrad Motorsport)... Points: 1 Haslam 45, Fabrizio 36, 3 Checa 34, 4 Haga 27, 5 Guintoli 23, 6 Rea 23, 8 TROY CORSER (AUS-BMW Motorrad Motorsport)...