The Suzuki Alstare team, which this year is sponsored by Brux, a leading Italian company in the dentistry industry, got off to a positive start in this year's championship at Phillip Island. Max Neukirchner and Yukio Kagayama both ran at the front in the first race, finishing second and third respectively. But the German rider fought for the win with Noriyuki Haga right until the very end, and was only beaten by his Japanese rival at the finish. In race 2 both riders suffered tyre grip problems and they had to settle for sixth and eighth place. These results however allowed Neukirchner to leave Australia with the second place slot in the championship. With the Qatar Round fast approaching, Max is confident he can score good results at a circuit which has often reserved considerable satisfaction for Suzuki.
"I was very happy with the first race and thought I could win it, after a big fight with Nori" declared Neukirchner. "But I made a little mistake on the last lap and that was enough for Nori to take the chequered flag and push me to second. But for me, second is a great start to the season and it is a good way to say thank you to my team for all the hard work over the winter. I had some problems with chatter in race two and also got caught up in a lot of traffic and found it not easy to get through it. I lost three seconds on the front group and that was too much to make up. The grip level seemed quite a bit down in race two and it was not possible to go any faster. If I had gone any quicker, I may have crashed and I didn't want that as Yukio and I have not had a single crash all weekend!"