2005 World Superbike championship, round five Silverstone, GB Race one Sunday, 29 May 2005 VERMEULEN FOURTH IN SILVERSTONE OPENER Chris Vermeulen finished fourth in the opening race of the World Superbike championship fifth round at Silverstone, GB today. The race was won by French rider Regis Laconi, with Vermeulen’s Winston Ten Kate Honda team-mate Karl Muggeridge finishing in tenth place. Vermeulen spent much of the gruelling 28-lap race around Silverstone’s 3.56km International circuit trying to pass British rider Chris Walker but, by the time he had taken fourth place form his rival, the top three riders had opened a five second lead. Ronald ten Kate team manager: “That wasn’t what we were expecting after yesterday’s qualifying and the warm-up this morning. We have one or two problems that we need to solve before race two when I hope there will be some better results. Chris has closed the gap a little to second place in the championship but Troy Corser has still extended his lead.” Chris Vermeulen – fourth “My start was OK but I nearly lost the front going into the first turn. As we came out, Kagayama was spinning up right in front of me and I had to shut off a little. Then it took me ages to get by Chris Walker because it’s really hard to make a pass stick here. I tried in about four different places but every time I got by I ran wide. When I finally got there the others had gone and my tyres were pretty much done. It was really hard work doing 28 laps around here but I’m hoping for better in race two.” Karl Muggeridge – tenth “I had a pretty good start and made up a few places on the first lap. But after about two thirds of the race the bike developed an ignition problem which meant it didn’t rev as high as it should. I lost some top speed and couldn’t do anything about getting passed by a couple of other riders, which was pretty frustrating. The changes we made this morning improved things a little but we still need to find some more grip in the second race.” World Superbike, Silverstone race one results (28 laps, 99.7kms): 1 Regis Laconi FRA (Ducati) 40m59.899s, 2 Troy Corser AUS (Suzuki) +0.096s 3 James Toseland GBR (Ducati) +1.136, 4 Chris Vermeulen AUS (Winston Ten Kate Honda) +11.285, 5 Pierfrancesco Chili ITA (Honda) +14.469, 6 Chris Walker GBR (Kawasaki) +16.461, 7 Max Neukirchner GER (Honda) +40.465, 8 Giovanni Bussei ITA (Kawasaki) +43.265, 9 Jose Luis Cardoso ESP (Yamaha) +46.411, 10 Karl Muggeridge (Winston Ten Kate Honda) +49.211.