Vermeulen pleased with fifth place

The Australian started the race at Le Mans from eighth on the grid and fended off a late challenge from the JiR Team Scot Honda of Andrea Dovizioso to finish 21 seconds behind winner Valentino Rossi on Fiat Yamaha.

"Well that was alright, I guess," said Vermeulen. "I'm happy with the weekend, we made some progress and we finally got some good points on the board.

"I am a little disappointed with fifth because I was really hoping I'd have a bit more pace to be able to fight with the front guys. I felt I was just that little bit behind and just couldn't close the gap.

"We are testing here tomorrow so hopefully we can try and improve a few more things on the bike, and make more steps in Mugello.

"I want to say a big thanks to my crew, they've worked out all the issues we had from China and the Rizla Suzuki GSV-R worked great all weekend and we had no problems at all."

Teammate Loris Capirossi, who classified in seventh position, wasn't as happy with his race.

The Italian, who admitted to struggle throughout the weekend by being unable to exploit the bike's full potential, said Kawasaki rival John Hopkins apologized to him for an over-optimistic move that pushed him onto the grass.

"It has been really hard for me all weekend," said Capirossi. "We just couldn't go as quick as we wanted to. We made some changes yesterday and went a bit better, but today we struggled in warm-up.

"In the race we didn't get the result we are looking for and seventh is not our target, but we scored some good points and we must wait for it to be our moment to go quick.

"I was pushed onto the grass by another rider and maybe I could have had a better result, but that is racing and he has come and apologised so that's all good.

"Our potential is not too bad, but we still need to discover something new so we can go a bit quicker."