World SBK: FIM SuperBikes Round Three – Valencia, Spain
Olaf Wolff
AllAboutBikes Sr. Staff Writer
Damn, all things aligned for another Spies victory as he continued to make a big impression in his debut World Superbike season by his taking a third consecutive Superpole Saturday at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Spain. Spies turned a record-breaking lap of one minute, 33.270 seconds on the four-kilometer, 14-turn circuit. Mind you he accomplished that feat on his back-up Yamaha R1, after his A-bike experienced technical problems.
I say damn because the only room for drama at that point is if he doesn’t win. And, as anyone who has watched sporting events long enough knows, Murphy with his annoying set of laws always ends up putting the kibosh on these sorts of sure-thing scenarios.
“I was a little worried about switching to the B bike,” Spies said after setting the hectic Superpole. “The set-up on the A-bike was so good I wondered how I might do on the B-machine. It had a slightly different set-up I hadn’t tried, so it was a big relief to find that the B-bike was really good as well.”
Under full race conditions though, even the slightest, miniscule, dissimilarity in setup can quickly become magnified into gargantuan errors. Alas, under near perfect racing conditions, and with Murphy’s Laws working against Spies, this was Noriyuki Haga’s circuit and it would be his day.
Race 1:
Haga led virtually from lights to flag after moving past early leader Max Neukirchner at the beginning of lap 3. The championship leader added a large bag of points to his advantage over Spies when the young Texan crashed out while fighting with the German Suzuki rider.
Spies couldn’t get find a way around Neukirchner and the Suzuki’s stellar top-end speed down the straights, and at times looked like he was purposely being blocked, which had Spies pressing hard in the corners. Too hard it would prove. The R-1 slide-out, flying haplessly ass-over-teakettles through the air. Spies slide to his feet fast and was psychically fine, but he was clearly pissed over letting this one slide away.
Michel Fabrizio took the second slot to give the factory Ducati team a 1-2 finish and Neukirchner held on for the number 3 podium position.
Yamaha's race was saved somewhat however with a very positive showing coming from Tom Sykes in seventh position, ahead of Max Biaggi (Aprilia Racing), who recovered well from a lowly grid position.
Race 2:
The stage was again set for something special from Spies, but it wasn’t to be, Haga refused to be ignored on this weekend. Haga dominated the second race as he had the first, taking the lead this time on lap 5. He then pulled away to win by over 5 seconds, and setting a race lap record of 1 minute 34.618 seconds in the process.
Spies managed to prevent a second Ducati 1-2 for the day by taking the runner-up slot, but he was never able to challenge Haga for the win. Third went to Fabrizio, who once again had to hold off Laconi throughout the 23 laps for the final podium slot.
After the race Haga commented, "We did a great job this weekend. I think one of the reasons is that after Qatar I did some ‘age-training.’ But anyway, today, 50 points is a great advantage over Ben and I'm very happy with this double win." Regrettably, no one followed up on what “age-training” he was referring to.
A visibly dejected Spies had only this to say, "I was trying as hard as we could in the first couple of laps, but had a couple of problems and didn't quite get rolling. By the time we got into second, I would have needed to be right on the back of Nori to stay with him because he was riding at a really good pace. I just didn't quite have those 3 or 4 tenths today, so I will come back at Assen and try to step it up."
