Valencia, Spain | MotoGP 2009 (Spoilers!)

Silly Brits. You eat nails but shit bricks.

 

The quoted post implied that he had never riden on the tires. He has...I no exactly nothing about MotoGP spec stones...I have no idea if they have changed or not, but he has in fact ridden on them in MotoGP.

He has also riden on them on a GP bike at Valencia..

 

Thanks to the similarities of having ridden at that track and his amazing riding he'll be balls deep into the top ten in no time.

Wow. Two balls references in one day.

Siyonara James Toseland.

 

The Brits are REALLY going to hate Spies after he has now disgraced two of thier favorite sons in Sykes and Toseland.

 

Spies has ridden on the Stones before, but this years Stones are definitely different than last years Stones. Rossi has said as much in interviews.

 

More different than WSBK Pirelli's to AMA SBK Dunlops? I don't think so...

 

And strangely enough, the brit board I am on has nothing but praise for Ben. Smart people see the right things. Now we just need to eject amafan, who has dumbed the joint down there considerably by finding it again despite three URL changes over the last year.

The twatwaffle was always good at finding links.

Excerpt from the YRC press release:

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Spies completes first MotoGP free practice in Valencia

Wildcard Sterilgarda Yamaha rider Ben Spies got stuck into the first free practice session of the weekend at the Valencia MotoGP today. Despite being Spies' first outing on the Yamaha YZR-M1, the American made good progress, improving by nearly five seconds over the course of the session and finishing just over a second off the top five in 15th position. Spies made few changes to his M1, preferring to get as much track time in as possible as he begins to understand the different handling and power characteristics compared to his championship winning Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike.

Tomorrow morning will see Spies looking to bring the set up of his bike further in line with his style of riding ahead of his first GP qualifying session on a Yamaha.

Ben Spies, Sterilgarda Yamaha Team - Position: 15thTime: 1'35.052
"it was actually a really good first session. Position wise it wasn't what we are used to but I haven't ridden a GP bike for a year and it's the first time I've set foot on a Yamaha so to be realistically only a second off being in the mix is pretty good. For the first day, and only 20 laps on the bike I'm happy. I'm starting to understand some of the characteristics of the M1. I'm going to keep baby steps and keep chipping away."

Massimo Meregalli - Sterilgarda Yamaha Team Manager
"For the first day here in this world with no experience on this bike or with these tires Ben did as usual a good job, but we didn't expect anything else. For sure just one practice is not enough time to say too much but we cannot say that we are not satisfied. Ben didn't want to use more than one set of tyres, he just wanted to spend some time on his bike and get used to the differences from his superbike. Tomorrow he will make another step, I'm very optimistic as I was all season with him."

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Sharp eyes will note that Merigalli (and I'm assuming House and Woody) are there with him...

-jim

 

Yea I suck, sorry.

 

The thing that really impresses me about Spies is his approach to the weekend. Sounds like he rode the whole session on one set of tires and minimal changes to the bike. I would think with the advanced electronics and chassis adjustability, that you could chase your tail making changes all weekend to never have a good feeling on the bike. Spies seems to prefer to ride, disect how the bike/rider is performing and then make any changes. Smart man.

 

I don't think he has a spare bike so it wouldn't make any sense at all to be going bonkers on it.

 

Is one just a cardboard cutout?

http://resources.motogp.com/files/images/xy/2009/MotoGP/n504807_SPIES03.original.jpg

 

The word more was not in my post. It was not implied either. All I said was that they were different.

 

Mirror image

 

The old dude to the left of Merigalli looks like he just shat a duck (to use DaveK-speak).

-jim

 

Speaking of which...

Where's Houseworth?!?!

Was he in the shitter when that shot was taken?

 

I can't wait for tomorrow morning....I'm excited to see what happens next!

 

Or Woody for that matter??!?

 

I read somewhere house and woody were along for the ride this weekend more as a posse... AKA they are "observing" things, and the M1 testing team thats been in place is handling tuning duties this weekend, I think House gets in the mix Monday

 

Oh House was there doing work, writing stuff down when I was watching practice right next to Ben.

 

That was all that I saw this morning.


Maybe he was asking what Ben wanted for lunch???