Vermeulen Sits It Out To Be Ready For 2011 After further injuring his right knee at Brno last Sunday Chris Vermeulen will sit out the rest of the season to make sure he is fully fit to race the all-new Ninja ZX-10R in WSBK next year. Chris had been healing steadily after a heavy crash injured ligaments in his right knee during round one, at Phillip Island in February. His unavoidable fall during round nine’s opening race ended with his knee being injured yet again, so to make sure Chris will be back at his best to compete at full pace in 2011 he and the Kawasaki Racing Team made the decision to stop for the moment. Chris has a contract to race again for KRT in 2011 and the Australian rider is still very much at the centre of Kawasaki’s WSBK plans for next season. Chris is due to go to Spain on Wednesday 14 July to see a specialist, and may have an operation to reconstruct his knee, which would require a recovery period of probably a few months. Operation or not, the ideal situation for both rider and team would be for Chris to return to testing in late autumn, but until a final medical opinion is arrived at nothing can be decided for certain. Speaking as he was preparing to head to Spain, Chris stated, “I was not doing myself any good riding while just not fit, and Kawasaki is happy for me to take the time off to get fit, come back and start testing the new bike when I am strong. Hopefully that will be around October/ November time. It is a little bit of a shame that I will miss a few tests, but they want me to come back 100% strong. In this championship you cannot afford to give up anything, so we need all my information to be accurate, myself to be fast enough on the bike and pushing as hard as I can. Whether I need an operation or not will be decided on soon. Whatever that decision is, I am going to be 100% before I get back on the bike.”