Vermeulen splashes to superb third at Sachsenring

Despite starting in fourteenth place on the grid at the Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland, wet specialist Chris Vermeulen took full advantage of the Sachsenring rain to fight his way through the pack and secure a brilliant third place for the Rizla Suzuki team.

Although he came under heavy pressure towards the end of the race from Alex de Angelis, Vermeulen showed tremendous skill in the tricky conditions to bring his bike home on the podium for the first time this season.

Afterwards Vermeulen commented, `I am very happy to be on the podium here in Germany. It was a really difficult race, as there was a lot more water than when we had practised. I have got to give full credit to Bridgestone as they pushed me to go for a much harder compound than I wanted and it definitely worked.´

The affable Australian continued, `I really want to thank my crew as well, and the Japanese Suzuki staff, as we didn´t really have a lot of set-up in the rain but the bike worked really well. It wasn´t perfect but it was more than capable of getting me home, so I am really pleased to have put it on the podium for them as well. Let´s hope this is the start of a good run and now we are off to a track I enjoy a lot so hopefully we can move up to the top step there.´

From the other side of the Suzuki pit-box Loris Capirossi produced a fantastically brave display, competing with the injured right arm that hampered him all weekend. Starting from thirteenth the tough and experienced Italian eventually crossed the finishing line in seventh position.

Capirossi said, `I am really happy for the whole team because Chris did a great job to finish third and I know it means a lot to everyone. I had to fight a lot with myself for the whole race and by half distance I had quite a lot of pain and was finding it very difficult to change direction, but for me the wet conditions helped with the injury.´

`I had a battle with Randy de Puniet and on the last corner I was able to overtake him and that was really good for me because I was still able to fight even with the injury and I know it will have healed more next time and I´ll be a lot stronger.´