Written by:
SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com
Rizla Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen fought through the pain barrier during this afternoon's qualifying practice at Laguna Seca in America, to earn himself a third row start for tomorrow's U.S. GP.
Vermeulen (P9, 1'22.633, 34 laps) suffered a huge high-side crash at the end of this morning's practice session that left the Australian with heavy bruising all down his left side, but thankfully no broken bones. Vermeulen showed consistent race pace throughout both of today's sessions and is sure that he has enough speed to run towards the front in tomorrow's race.
Loris Capirossi (P10, 1'22.662, 33 laps) made some huge steps towards the end of this afternoon's qualifying as he finally found a setting he was more comfortable with on his Suzuki GSV-R. He qualified just 0.029 seconds behind teammate Vermeulen and within a second of pole-setter Jorge Lorenzo. Capirossi is confident that he has turned a corner and can be competitive in the race.
Tomorrow's 32-lap race is round eight of the 2009 MotoGP World Championship and the show will get on the move at 14.00hrs local time (21.00hrs GMT).
Chris Vermeulen:
"I managed to stay upright this afternoon for a whole hour, so that was a first for this weekend and the mechanics are also very pleased about that! Firstly though, I want to thank my crew because they worked so hard between sessions today after I wrecked a bike this morning. The crew has done a great job and managed to get the bike ready for this afternoon. When we went out we made quite an improvement and took some big steps in lap-times. I was able to do the lap-times very consistently and I think we can do that tomorrow in the race. We still need to find a bit more pace to be right at the front, but the front feeling certainly got better today, although we are still looking for a bit more rear grip. We still have a couple of things to work on tomorrow morning, but we should be in good shape for the race. I am a bit disappointed to be on the third row as I feel like I had the pace to be nearer the front of the grid. It will be important to get a good start and get right up there early on and work on things from there."
