As the Kawasaki team gets ready for their trip to America for the fifth round of the World Superbike series, Chris Vermeulen will be resting up for his likely return at San Marino.
Vermeulen will get back on the Kawasaki ZX-10R in early June for a testing session at Aragon. The test will show how strong Vermeulen’s injured shoulder is, as well as give him some time to reacquaint himself with the Kawasaki bike before the 6th round of the season.
“It is disappointing to not race in America but my injuries are still healing,” Vermeulen said. “The good thing is they are improving. The decision was taken with the team and Kawasaki to miss the race and concentrate on testing.
“That’s not only for myself to get some time under my belt away from the racing, but also to get more information about the bike. That means I should hopefully come back strong at Misano which is a track I know quite well. I have never ridden at Aragon before so it will be good to get some track time in and learn the track before we go there after Misano.”
Joan Lascorz and Tom Sykes will be making the trip to America, and both riders are looking forward to the Miller round.
“Personally, I really look forward to this race, it is a beautiful part of the world and it is massive bonus to go racing there,” Sykes said. “We struggled there last year but we have a new bike this year and I am positive about that. I am hoping we can go there and certainly improve on last year but also improve on our previous results this year and move forward again.
“Hopefully we can make our hard work at the previous rounds count in America. The challenges for the rider there are the time zone change and the massive increase in altitude. You lose a bit of power from the bike at the high altitude but what you need is a bike set-up which turns and holds a good line at Miller. There is little of this circuit where you are completely upright. It sounds obvious but the more time we get on the bike the better we will be.”
