Chris Vermeulen celebrated his best result so far this season by finishing in an impressive fifth position at Le Mans in France today, with team-mate Loris Capirossi crossing the line in an equally strong seventh place.

Vermeulen started from eighth on the grid and made up a couple of places on the first lap. He then set three personal-best laps in succession as he moved into fifth place, and the Australian was in touch with the leaders as light rain started to fall on the 4’185m circuit. Track officials waved the white flags to signify that pit-lane was open if the riders wanted to change to their wet weather bikes, but Vermeulen - like most riders – chose to stay out and consolidate his position. He had a couple of narrow escapes as the track surface got very slippery from the rain, but he brought the Rizla Suzuki GSV-R home safely to score valuable championship points for himself and the team.

Capirossi made a strong start from the fourth row of the grid and was up to seventh by the end of lap two. He was involved in a race long battle with a large group of riders, which also resulted in one of them pushing Capirossi off the track and on to the grass. The experienced Italian lost some places but battled back to take a hard, but well earned nine championship points.

Today’s race started in bright sunshine with track temperatures at 26ºC, as the light drizzle fell the temperatures cooled off, but this didn’t dampen the spirits of over 74,000 fans at trackside who were treated to a comprehensive victory by Valentino Rossi – a win that puts him joint second, with Angel Nieto, in the all-time list of Grand Prix victories by a rider.

Rizla Suzuki MotoGP will now stay in at Le Mans for a further day of testing, before moving on to Capirossi’s home GP at Mugello in Italy on Sunday 1^st June.

Chris Vermeulen:

“Well that was alright – I guess! I’m happy with the weekend, we made some progress and we finally got some good points on the board. I am a little disappointed with fifth because I was really hoping I’d have a bit more pace to be able to fight with the front guys. I felt I was just that little bit behind and just couldn’t close the gap. We are testing here tomorrow so hopefully we can try and improve a few more things on the bike, and make more steps in Mugello.

“I want to say a big thanks to my crew, they’ve worked out all the issues we had from China and the Rizla Suzuki GSV-R worked great all weekend and we had no problems at all.”