Season’s best for Vermeulen in France

The Rizla Suzuki riders Chris Vermeulen and Loris Capirossi review their Grand Prix de France experiences, after both concluded the weekend in the top ten in a difficult wet-dry race at Le Mans.

Chris Vermeulen – 6th

"It was a really difficult race - which I am sure everyone else will say. We started on wets and we hadn't done any wet testing so it was really tough for the engineers to get the bike set up for the conditions. They did a really good job and the bike felt reasonable, but if it had been a practice session we would certainly have come in to make changes. When the track started to dry out I saw Rossi crash and thought that it wasn't dry enough for slicks yet, so I stayed out a bit longer - probably a couple of laps too long - and it made things a bit difficult towards the end. We finished sixth and that is our best result so far this season and it gives us some good points. Now we are looking to improve on that in Mugello."

Loris Capirossi – 8th

"We changed to a slick tyre really early on in the race and it was still a bit too wet to do that. It wasn't really a mistake, more a gamble that didn't work, as I made a couple of mistakes on the damp patches and ran off. I tried to keep my rhythm, but I found I had the same problem as yesterday that when the track dried out I just didn't have enough grip. I tried hard, but Colin went past in the last few laps and I just didn't have enough to attack him back. We have now finished our work here and we must try to take the good points from it and think about the future and the next couple of races."