Spies reflects on disappointing French weekend

World Superbike Press Release

It was once again an up and down weekend for Ben Spies (Yamaha World Superbike) at Magny-Cours. The Texan, after taking the win in race 1, his 13th out of 26 so far, had tire problems in the second encounter that ruled him out of any chance of repeating the result.

Ben had to settle for a fourth place finish, a result that once again put him behind chief rival Noriyuki Haga in the standings, but this time ten points adrift. Spies however is determined to make up that gap in the last round of the season at Portimao, where his sole aim will be to win both the races.

"The whole first race had some good parts and bad ones" said Spies. "We made some small mistakes, costing us a tenth here and a tenth there letting the riders come back and not really taking advantage of the lead. I made a mistake on the last lap and let Nori through, so I had to get on the outside and get back past.”

Honestly I'm just super disappointed with the second race. We made a rear tire choice which was neither better nor worse, but the front tire we had on in the second race was hard to go at a pace with. I was consistently half a second off what we were doing in practice.

I'm honestly surprised we didn't finish in tenth with the way the bike felt. Even if we had won today we would still go to Portimao having to win both races so it doesn't really change too much.”