Chris Vermeulen has made it and is finally back on his Kawasaki superbike.
The Australian after being out of action following his knee reconstruction surgery six months ago, had his first taste of the Ninja ZX-10R that he’ll be using this 2011 seasonKawasaki brought a platoon of riders to Sepang for the four day test, and while team mates Tom Sykes and Joan Lascorz, were learning the track and finding base set-ups, Vermeulen who already knows the Malaysian circuit from his MotoGP days, just concentrated riding and getting rid of the rust.
Here’s what he had to say: “I eased into it today and only did a limited number of laps, over three separate runs.
I stopped before lunch today and then the rains came later in the afternoon, but we will go out again tomorrow.
The new bike feels really good.
The last bike I rode around Sepang was a GP machine, so to be impressed with this motorbike already shows it is a very good start.
All the guys have done a great job in developing it.
I was happy to come away with that positive impression, even after a relatively short number of laps so far.
Right now I cannot quite bend my knee enough when going round right hand corners, but my knee has improved a lot over the last couple of weeks.
Everything in the recovery of my knee is going to plan, and in fact I am quite a bit ahead of what the doctors expected.
My muscle growth is good, particularly considering I have only been walking for three weeks.
”Kawasaki testing continues on Tuesday with a break on Wednesday, to resume Thursday and Friday.