SUPERBIKE legend Carl Fogarty today admitted he will be glad when the year is over after his racing team's debut season went from bad to worse in Italy.

Wild card rider Lorenzo Mauri suffered a serious knee injury as a result of a crash during yesterday afternoon's qualifying session which rules him out of tomorrow's races at Misano.

The 26-year-old Italian was only here as a one-off replacement for the injured James Haydon but he crashed coming out of the Curva del Rio section of the Santamonica circuit during his out-lap.

An initial assessment of the injury by track-side doctors suggested fractures of the bones around the knee and Mauri was immediately whisked off to have an operation in his home town of Monza.

That leaves the Foggy Petronas Team down to just one rider for tomorrow's races and Fogarty revealed the latest set-back had come as a major body blow in what's turning out to be a tough first season.

"Things just seem to get worse and worse," said Foggy.

"I thought Silverstone was the low point but to then see a young lad get injured here makes you wonder what we have done wrong.

"That's racing, though, I suppose. People get injured, it's just unfortunate it's a guy who we'd just put on the bike.

"He was really excited about this weekend, he'd gone well in that first morning session, and he was really up for it.

"But unfortunately he went a little bit too quick on that first lap which is inexperience, I guess.

"You shouldn't be crashing on that first lap out. If you're going to crash at all, it should be on a fast lap when you're pushing the bike to the limits.

"He maybe gave it a bit too much gas because he wasn't quite used to the bike, it threw him off and he landed badly and caught his knee against the barrier.

"So it doesn't sound too good and it looks as though he's broken some of his knee cap off, which is a disaster for him."