Vermeulen, Suzuki question qualifying cancellation

Chris Vermeulen and Rizla Suzuki team manager Paul Denning were left with unanswered questions after the decision to abandon Saturday's qualifying session at Sepang, then use free practice lap times to decide grid positions for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Qualifying was delayed for two hours by heavy rain, and then cancelled - even though the rain had stopped and dry patches were appearing - because the amount of standing water on parts of the track was deemed too dangerous.

However Vermeulen, who will now start just 16th on the grid, wants to know why no riders personally examined the track before the decision was made.

"We weren't really trying to do the fast laps and I didn't use a qualifier like some of the riders did this morning because it wasn't a qualifying session! So because of that I am a long way back on the grid," began the young Australian, who took a wet pole position in Turkey. "But what surprises me is that maybe the track is not in the best condition at the moment, but what if it rains tomorrow? I'm sure Valentino and others won't be pushing for the race to be stopped. I'm not saying he had any involvement today but nobody even went out to see what it was like. Safety does come first but no rider went out there, not even in a safety car, so how can we say what it would have been like!"

Vermeulen's team-mate John Hopkins will start from the third row, in eighth position, after also feeling penalised for not running a qualifying tyre in the morning.

"Safety is a very important thing but it's a shame we never got to ride because as it stands now I'm going to be starting from eighth, when I'm sure in qualifying it would have been higher," he said. "Some of the riders in front of me used qualifiers this morning and I just concentrated on my race set-up so I was penalised really. But we know that we can do the times and race well, so come rain or shine we will be ready!"

"First of all the cancellation of the qualifying session was massively disappointing in terms of both rider's grid positions, and the fact that we couldn't continue the excellent progress we had made this morning," stated Denning. "We understand that Race Direction's decision about grid positions was a difficult one to make, in that there is nothing in the rule book to clarify this situation - it's clear that there should be for the future.

"Secondly it hasn't worked out very fairly in that many riders used qualifying tyres this morning, whereas others - our guys included - concentrated on race set-up and tyre testing. We would have liked to have seen an extended warm-up tomorrow morning to include a qualifying session. This is grand prix racing and the guys take big risks on the Saturday in qualifying, so I don't see why that risk couldn't be on Sunday morning before the race.

"Anyway, it is what it is and both our guys will be going full out to improve significantly on their grid positions in tomorrow's race!" he concluded.