Tough outing for Vermeulen at Le Mans

Chris Vermeulen

Photo by: Bridgestone Corporation

Chris Vermeulen, who was standing in for the injured Colin Edwards at Le Mans, endured a difficult race at the soaking wet French track, finishing in 18th.

The NGM Mobile Forward Racing Team rider fell foul of the elements, as he was forced to pit halfway through the race with a helmet problem. He subsequently managed to re-join and finish the race, to help collect valuable date for the still relatively new Suter-BMW machine. The team took the opportunity to test the bike’s wet weather set-up and work on the electronics package, which is currently the bike’s main area for improvement.

Chris Vermeulen

"The race conditions today were very difficult but we had to go out and do it. For me it was a long time ago since I rode in the rain. I think that that for the bike and the team, they have limited experience in these conditions. Early on it was raining a lot and was very cold, making it was difficult to generate heat into the tires and we struggled a lot. The more laps we did and as the track dried a little bit, it suited our setting a lot more and I was able to go reasonably fast. At some point I was close to be as quick as any of the other CRT bikes during the race. I had to pit in because I had some vision problems with my helmet. It was unfortunate that it happened, it really affected our race. Its been a log time since I have ridden in the rain but I was glad to be back racing in MotoGP and hopefully the information we gave to the team and Suter can help for the future."

Kornelis Veldeman – Crew Chief

"It was hard for us to race in the rain today. We had some issues this morning during the warm up, we did solve most of it but made a mistake with the suspension. We made a small change in the suspension, which proved to be taking us in the wrong direction, making it difficult to get the heat in the tire. Only after five laps the heat came in giving it temperature. Lap times were dropping but at that point we were already a couple of second behind the last rider. Chris also had to come in because of trouble with his helmet and we lost too much time. In the end we could say that this was a good test and we have now more data to work on for the next race."

Giovanni Cuzari – Team Owner/CEO

"A lot of work has been done in the development and test of the new electronics, as well as gathering of important data in wet conditions that will be useful for Colin. The only "regret" is that this race could have ended in a better result given Chris Vermeulen´s improvement in lap times. I would like to thank Chris for joining the team this weekend and for helping us improve our CRT."