Suzuki hugely disappointed with result

The team had high hopes for Laguna Seca given Vermeulen's back to back podiums in the last two GPs at the track, but this year the squad was never in the hunt.

Although Vermeulen was pleased to salvage eighth having lost a lot of ground on lap one, he said the bike's race pace had been far slower than he had hoped.

"It was a difficult race and we didn't end up where we wanted to be," he said. "I got quite a good start but then got boxed in on turn one and lost a few positions. I was battling with Loris and Colin [Edwards] and got caught up with them and came out of it the worse, and ended up in about 14th place.

"We also struggled a bit with tyre performance today and didn't get the ultimate performance out of the bike. From about lap 15 and right to the end my times were quite quick and when everybody's tyre dropped down - including mine - it was a lot easier to ride the bike.

"We just didn't really have the performance with the new tyres and it's something that has affected us before this year and is certainly something we will have to look at."

Team boss Paul Denning said Vermeulen's result reflected Suzuki's current disappointing place in the MotoGP pecking order.

"It was a 32-lap race and we were 32 seconds off the win," he said. "One second a lap doesn't sound much, but it is a big gap to bridge and we need to do everything we can to get closer to the front guys as soon as possible."

Capirossi said his early crash was particularly frustrating as Suzuki had made good progress on his set-up following a disappointing practice performance.

"I am really upset about today, because we have worked so hard this weekend to find the best solution and we thought we would be okay with the setting today," he said.

"I started quite well and was really aggressive in the first couple of laps, but in Turn 6 I lost the front on the second lap and then on the next lap I did the same in the same place, but this time I crashed.

"I am really sorry for the whole team because they have worked so hard this week. The truth is this has been a terrible weekend for me as we never really found a good solution."