Roberto Rolfo’s gig with IodaRacing lasted five days – from announcement on Saturday after the final qualifying session of the season to the day after the Valencia tests – which meant that Giampiero Sacchi’s CRT team, who will be expanding to two riders in 2013 needs to find a new rider to pair up with Danilo Petrucci and that rider may turn out to be Chris Vermeulen.
Vermeulen’s last official ride was with Kawasaki’s factory team in World Superbikes, but he spent more time of the 2010 season sidelined with numerous knee issues following a crash in the season opener at Phillip Island that would later force him to pull out of the championship to undergo knee reconstructive surgery.
While in 2011 he was hindered by stil another array of injuries, from his back to his elbow forcing him to skip several rounds.
Despite having dropped hints that other teams were interested in him, the Australian spent 2012 away from racing except for replacing injured Colin Edwards (fractured collarbone) at the LeMans GP – where he finished 17th on NGM Forward’s Suter-BMW.
Despite not being overly enthusiastic about CRT machines, Vermeulen wants to race again and have another shot in MotoGP and IodaRacing could be his gateway back to a full-time ride in the premier class and the Italian squad would get an experienced development rider.