Kawasaki’s Chris Vermeulen found his first race meeting at the impressive new World Superbike facility of Motorland Aragon a game of two contrasting halves.

The Queenslander scored 12th in race one despite losing many places in the early laps, then found his race two set-up far from ideal in the much hotter mid-afternoon conditions, ending up 14th but still in the points scoring places.

“Race one was so bad, got quite a good start but then boxed in on the first lap, and I actually went back to last place,” Vermeulen said. “But we passed quite a few of them and our pace was quite good in he middle of the race same as that of the fifth to seventh place guys.

“I managed to get up to 12th and in the last couple of laps the tyres dropped off, but we still managed to pass Roberto Rolfo.

“In race two our set-up and tyre choice was exactly the same and I had no grip from the start, so I was riding along two seconds a lap slower in the hot conditions.

“It was frustrating when you know the package under you can do to do it but for some reason we were unable to do it.”

Vermeulen now sits 19th in the standings after missing much of the 2011 season to date.