Yamaha Factory Racing rider Ben Spies misses podium after tyre wear out at Motorland Aragon – MotoGP
Yamaha Factory Racing rider Ben Spies lost a podium finish due to instant and severe tyre wear out during the Motorland Aragon event.
Currently, Spies holds fifth place in the 2011 championship by moving ahead of Valentino Rossi.
Spies said, “I'm not saying it was a problem with the Bridgestone tire; it may have been a setting problem. I was taking some really big risks while going slow and it was very frustrating, and clear that I had really good pace but then all of a sudden this
just hit us.”
The Texan rider made a strong run through the Spanish race weekend. Initially he was not fast enough to challenge the top riders but eventually in the qualifying round he was third to start the race.
During the final moments of the QP round, he clocked a brilliant lap time to be placed ahead of his teammate Jorge Lorenzo. Meanwhile, the Spaniard struggled for grip and settled at fourth place on the grid.
Ben Spies had an ideal race start at Spain, with an instant jump to first from the third position. While going into the second lap of the race, he was back to third defending his position against his teammate Lorenzo.
Spies added, “I tried to ride around it but I would have crashed -- I was honestly scared even running a second and a half off the pace so to get a top five after all that I was happy. I believe we had a podium chance today.”
With his development through the weekend, it was sure he had the pace to hit a podium step. The unexpected tyre wear out however ruined the raceday.
Spies claimed that the rear tyre had never acted like this before. The first ten laps were done with brilliant pace but as the laps went on, the tyres shredded off.
However, the laps done in the warm up session went fine and did not have the same problem. During the race, the sudden fall of rubber was disturbing which caused problems for Spies.
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