Vermeulen rides Kawasaki in Japan

Chris Vermeulen, who will be an official Kawasaki World Superbike rider in 2010, had his first test at Autopolis in Japan last week. He only did one half day on track due to the inclement wintry conditions, but was glad to have done his first test on his new machine.

“The weather was so cold on the first day that we didn’t do any laps,” said Vermeulen, who is one of a select band of riders to have won both WSB and MotoGP races. “Nobody went out to do a lap on day one because it got a maximum of one degree and it was freezing cold! The second day was a bit better. I got out about 1pm and at least it was sunny. The air temperature got up to about six or seven, the track temperature got up to about 14 degrees.”

Vermeulen, who was suffering with a flu through the test, said “I was just riding to get the bars, footpegs and seat in the right place. Just general things like that, all the early stuff you try to get done. We played around with some small set-up things as well. On the chassis side the bike felt well balanced and did everything fairly well for a first ride in the conditions we had. It was pretty much just a basic test. I guess I did somewhere between 30 and 40 laps, between one and four o’clock.”

Vermeulen will get his next chance to ride the machine at Cartagena in Spain on 30 November and 1 December.