Corser suffers double disaster.

Misano cost reigning Corona Extra Superbike World champion Troy Corser dear on Sunday; the Suzuki star crashing out of both races to put a severe dent in his slim title hopes.

The Australian was thrown from his factory GSX-R1000 after a gearbox problem while holding third in race one, then lost the front of his Alstare run machine while leading race two.

"Well that was a day to forget, for sure! And it probably all stemmed from me having to miss the Brno test recently," insisted Troy, who was forced to sit out the Czech outing after catching chicken pox. "In the first race, the bike jumped out of first gear at La Querca corner and I was thrown off the bike. There was no warning, one minute I was in gear and OK and the next minute - bang!

"I made a good start in race two, but I'm not sure how because I had virtually no feeling what the bike was doing off the line! I managed to get the lead and held it for seven laps I guess. It felt pretty comfortable and I could see that nobody was catching me, so I didn't push hard. I didn't want to screw up the tyres by pushing too hard, too soon.

"All seemed OK, but then there were a few niggly gearshifts and I began to wonder if the bike was going to jump out of gear again and that made me a bit nervous exiting the turns. There was cement dust in the final chicane from a crash earlier in the day and unfortunately it was right on my racing line. I had to run wider then I wanted to make sure I avoided it and one lap I ran a bit too wide. I tried to change direction, but the tyre wouldn't grip and bang - down I went again.

"I picked the bike up to get going again, but I could see it was full of stones and gravel, so I knew it was a waste of time. What a day! As I said, the problems we had this weekend would have surfaced at the Brno tests and we would've solved them before we started practice this weekend. But, I wasn't at the tests and the problems happened in a race situation and we lost out. That's how racing is sometimes."

The double DNF has dropped Corser from second to fourth in the championship standings, 105 behind points leader Troy Bayliss - who also fell in race two.