Vermeulen hits back at safety claims
Chris Vermeulen has hit back at criticisms from Valentino Rossi and Loris Capirossi that the sport's younger riders are not interested in safety matters
Rossi and Capirossi, head figures in MotoGP's Safety Commission, expressed frustration at the British Grand Prix that the new generation of riders generally stayed away from their Friday night meetings.
"A lot of riders say, 'aaahhh, this track is shit', 'with the asphalt no way', but then at 5pm on Fridays, nobody comes. Never," Rossi told autosport.com.
But Vermeulen has said he doesn't understand why Rossi and Capirossi have been so outspoken - because he has never been asked to go along to the meetings.
"They have never invited me to start with," said Vermeulen, who joined MotoGP full time last year. "All these (safety) decisions are made wherever they make them.
"It is like the new start rule that we get in warm up, which I think is not maybe the best idea. When we had the meeting about it, Nicky (Hayden) was there and we got told by race direction about what was going to happen.
"Nicky said he didn't know anything about it. Now, he is the world champion and they hadn't even consulted him! They (Rossi and Capirossi) might say that, but they haven't come and asked any riders. And I don't know when the meetings are."
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