Chris Vermeulen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nationality | Australian | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born |
Brisbane, Queensland |
19 June 1982 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Website | chrisvermeulen.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chris Vermeulen (born 19 June 1982) is an Australian motorcycle racer who last competed in the World Superbike Championship for the works Kawasaki team.
Vermeulen was born in Brisbane. He first raced in the Superbike class in 2004 and 2005 for the Ten Kate Honda team, finishing as series runner-up in 2005. He also won the World Supersport Championship for Ten Kate in 2003.
From 2006 season he joined the elite MotoGP series, for the Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Team. On 28 August 2009 Suzuki confirmed Vermeulen will leave the team at the end of the 2009 season. He is regarded as a wet-weather expert, and is affectionately nicknamed 'Vermin' on account of his last name.
In 1999 he raced in the Australian Superbike Championship, despite only having participated in a handful of professional races beforehand. He took his Yamaha to 8th in the championship, with a best result of 4th, and the privateer championship for non-factory riders. His mentor Barry Sheene then arranged rides for him in Britain in their Supersport and Superstock classes, and success in these gave him his World Supersport break with Castrol Honda.
Initial success in a few late-2000 races did not translate into a successful 2001, as he only managed a single top 5 finish. However, in 2002 he linked up with Dutch team owner Gerrit Ten Kate, taking his first poles and podiums en route to 7th in the championship in the 2002 season. He became the team's lead rider for 2003, and became series champion comfortably with four victories, becoming the youngest ever winner.
When Ten Kate arranged a deal to run a Honda Fireblade in World Superbikes for 2004, Chris was the natural choice to ride it. The team did their own development on the bike (in its first test they still used a road-bike clutch), but he still won four races and briefly led the championship before finishing 4th, as the only non-Ducati in the top 8.