Foggy squad loses Mauri on opening day in Misano.

Less than a week after confirming that Italian Lorenzo Mauri would replace the recovering James Haydon in this weekend's San Marino round of the World Superbike Championship at Misano, Fogarty Petronas Racing suffered a major blow when the 26 year-old crashed and seriously injured his knee.

Mauri, a one-off replacement for the team who ran with only one bike in Britain last weekend, crashed coming out of the Curva del Rio section of the 2.523-mile circuit during his very first lap in provisional qualifying. Initial assessment of the injury by track doctors suggested fractures of the bones around the knee and Mauri was immediately taken for an operation at his hometown of Monza.

Team manager Nigel Bosworth said: "We are all really disappointed for Lorenzo. It was a great opportunity for him and he was clearly very excited. For it to end like this for him has upset the whole team. He was getting to know the bike this morning but was probably caught out on cold tyres at the start of the afternoon session. It seems his knee was caught between the bike and a barrier on impact. We wish him well for his recovery. The whole day has again been difficult as we continue to struggle with reliability."

Troy Corser finished the morning free practice in 18th with a time of 1:38.155 and was 17th at the end of the afternoon session with an improved time of 1:37.548, set without using any of his allocation of qualifying tyres. The Australian said: "I think I have found a good front Michelin as I am going round the corners way faster than I ideally want to be, to try and make up as much time as possible. But it has been difficult to address set-up as the bike has not been running right."