SUPERBIKE legend Carl Fogarty today vowed 'I'm no quitter' as his Foggy Petronas Racing team geared up for the latest round of the World Series at Misano in Italy.

Foggy's team have been dogged by teething problems during their debut season which has led some critics to start speculating that the Blackburn bike ace could be ready to walk away.

But, although Fogarty has admitted there have been moments when he's felt like jacking it all in, he insists he's determined to conquer the biggest challenge of his racing career.

"There has been times for a split second in the heat of the moment when I've thought about quitting, especially at places like Silverstone when things are all going wrong," said Foggy, speaking exclusively to the Evening Telegraph in Italy.

"But as soon as you leave the track then it doesn't cross my mind at all.

"I've said this before but I could never have said 'no' to this project because it's the biggest thing that has ever happened to me in racing.

"I would have regretted it for the rest of my life if I'd never done this and at the end of the day it doesn't affect what I did as a rider anyway.

"It would have been easy to stay with Ducati and run a team of Ducatis but to me that wouldn't have been a challenge. If you're running a team of factory Ducatis then you know you're going to be in the first three guaranteed.

"To create something from a piece of paper and make it win races is a massive challenge and the lows we keep feeling at the moment because of the results and stuff will only make it feel all the sweeter when we do hit the front. And we will do, believe me."

That last round at Silverstone was comfortably the lowest point in the team's season so far.

With James Haydon ruled out through injury, Australian Troy Corser was left to shoulder the burden on his own but he could do little to lift the gloom after finishing last in one race and failing to complete the other.

Add to that a host of technical problems with the brand new Foggy FP1 bike and it's not been the best of starts for the fledgling team.

But Foggy is not a four-times world champion for nothing and he's determined to ride out the storm.

"It's been very frustrating. You know where you want to be but you're not there," said the former Ducati star.

"The start we had was very, very good. To make the front row in the first race of the season shocked the whole motorbike world and I thought we'd be able to build from there.

"But we haven't done. We were promised a lot of stuff for the engine which was supposed to make it stronger and faster but none of that has materialised and we've ended up with an overheating problem. Every time we try to make the bike more powerful it overheats.

"And the fact that the engine manufacturers are based in Switzerland has made it even more difficult.

"Silverstone at the weekend was very hard work. We didn't get into the superpole, we didn't score points and for that to happen on our England debut was really, really difficult to take. It's hard for me to be involved in something that isn't at the front and I don't think it's going to get a right lot better this year.

"Right now it's a case of putting up with what we've got and then hoping we can get the best out of this engine for next year.

"It's a five year deal and we were never realistically going to win a race in our first year anyway."

Fogarty is hoping for better things in Italy where he is still regarded as a massive hero following his exploits with Italian manufacturers Ducati.

Haydon is still missing after failing to recover from the neck injury he sustained in a horror crash in Germany but the team have drafted in rookie Italian Lorenzo Mauri as a wild-card replacement and they hope his local knowledge will prove to be useful over the next few days.

"it's never ideal having to put a new rider on a bike at a race weekend, without having done any testing," said Foggy.

"But it's a great opportunity for him and we will do our best to make the most of this new input on the bike, as he has good knowledge of Misano."