"The racing was really close. I think the other riders are getting faster and faster. I think maybe I was going faster myself last year, but my pace was good on Sunday," said Saiger.
"I only missed out on getting the lap record by two-tenths of a second. Everything went to plan."
While Saiger was enjoying his winning run in the F1 class, his Red Devil Racing Kawasaki team-mate from Switzerland, Roman Stamm, was also setting the track alight in the Formula Two 600cc Supers class.
Stamm took his Kawasaki ZX6R to win both F2 races, with Auckland's Daniel Mettam (Suzuki GSX-R600) and Wellington's Shane Richardson (Kawasaki ZX6R) filling out the podium.
"It is great that the Red Devil Racing Kawasaki team is on top of both the main classes, but fresh cards get dealt up every time we race, so there is still work to do," said Saiger.
"Our start to the season couldn't have been much better though."
For the local supporters, Whanganui's Richie Dibben claimed round one of the Super Moto class on his Honda CRF450.
Dibben finished a luckless second to Tauranga's Duncan Hart (YZF450) in last year's series while heading for his third straight title.
United Kingdom pair and world champions Tim Reeves and Mark Wilkes (LCR Kawasaki ZXR-10R) were easy winners of the F1 sidecars with second place going to Aaron Lovell and former Whanganui sidecar swinger Tracey Bryan.
However, Manfeild is a more technical circuit and of course Reeves and Wilkes have never been to the track before.
The Carl Cox Motorsport supported LCR teams' stunning speed has to be witnessed to be believed, especially at Manfeild with longer straights.
Reeves acknowledged it may have an uphill battle to protect the lead.
"I just hope that we can carry on this good form and the bike will stay reliable so we can enjoy ourselves again and learn another track, and maybe try to break another lap record.
"Again I'll be helping the New Zealand teams to progress forward."
While Reeves was kind enough to offer advice last week to 2014 series champions Lovell and Bryan, so they could chop off more than two seconds a lap at Hampton Downs, the Bay of Plenty duo plan to put their new-found speed into practice to close the gap to Reeves on their Shuzi LCR 1000.
"Hopefully we will go a bit faster there as well, we've actually never got to the lap record time at Manfeild so Tim is someone to chase, and again we'll have another set of new tyres, which helped tremendously at Hampton Downs," said Lovell.
Manfeild is the home track for several teams who have intimate knowledge of the fastest way around each corner, including degrees of banking and camber.
Former NZ Sidecar champions Spike Taylor and Astrid Hartnell like racing at Manfeild and look forward to racing their Stealth Electric Bikes LCR in front of a big crowd.
"Having that [European riders] class on our tracks in New Zealand is just amazing," said Taylor.
"We never get opportunities to race against them.
"It's like Valentino Rossi coming here to race, that's what it's like.
"Aaron and Tracey have stepped up while we haven't advanced but I think at Manfeild it will be a different story because we know it like the back of our hand.
"It's like someone's hand anyway - I don't know whose."
Formerly of Whanganui and now based out of Auckland, current NZ champions Adam Unsworth and Stu Dawe are also pretty quick around the Manawatu circuit on their Eni Windle F1sidecar, where their duels with drivers on faster sidecars are becoming legendary.
