Ben Spies - It’s a Learning Year, I’ll Keep Improving

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

I am three races into my rookie season as a MotoGP rider with the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha team so I guess this is a good time to write my first diary for the website!

On the whole it has been a very good start to the year for me because I have been on the pace and competitive, even though I got a taste of reality with the problem that forced us out of the race in Spain and my crashes in practice and the race in France. Obviously they were two disappointing races for me, although to be fair I think my fifth place in Qatar raised expectations a little too high amongst some people in the media and even some fans. This is a learning year for me and I am visiting a lot of the tracks, like Jerez and Le Mans, for the first time.

Looking back over the first three races I think the thing I have to work on most is those first few laps. I’m confident that when I get to lap ten that I can race with whoever is ahead of me – whether for fourth place or tenth place. If I can get to lap ten I feel I’m quite strong. But we’re going to all these new tracks now – Mugello, Catalunya and Silverstone – so it won’t be easy for me. When we get to Laguna or Assen and other places I’ve been to, I’ll be more confident starting the race weekend.

Coming from a background in Superbikes it is difficult to process all the information in MotoGP but no matter how sophisticated it all is, I think at the end of the day it’s more of a strength than a weakness of mine that I just try and simplify everything as much as I can and not get to wrapped up in making the bike perfect. I’ve always felt that if you can get the bike to 80% instead of messing around for an hour through the session trying to make it perfect, if you just work with that package, you can find little bits of time here and there. There’ve been a lot of times when my bike was a little bit off in certain areas but I’d try and do something different to get around it and do more time with that set-up and getting to know the track and the conditions better.

Having said that I have obviously had to adapt my riding style to MotoGP. You’ve got to be smooth on the brakes, letting off the brakes to keep that momentum going. It’s different if you are on your own or racing with somebody. If you are on your own nobody is going to pass you and you can run the lines you want and go for the lap time, but if you are racing somebody you have to get defensive. I feel my strength is in the one-on-one when you are racing for a place and the lap time doesn’t matter. My riding style, how I sit on the bike, hasn’t changed at all – it’s mainly my braking and throttle application and things like that, the smoothness.

The other big difference between World Superbike and MotoGP is the level of competition. I don’t mean this to be disrespectful in any way to my former rivals because the boys in WSBK are seriously fast, but the truth is Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa are on another level. To even score a podium against those guys when they are riding 100% would be more of an achievement to me than winning the World Superbike title.

Away from the track I am enjoying my life living in Europe, although at the moment (between the Le Mans and Mugello races) I have made a quick trip back to Dallas as it will be my last chance for a while. I still have my home at Lake Como in Italy so I feel very settled there and that’s a big help. Nicky Hayden’s brother Roger, who is making his debut this season in the World Supersport series, has been staying with me so that has also been a lot of fun. Roger is a real character and he is only just getting to grips with life outside the USA – the language, the food and the culture – so we have a lot of laughs at his expense! It’s also great to have him as a training partner and we do a lot of cycling around Lake Como together.

Overall I am very happy to be a part of the Yamaha family in MotoGP and I couldn’t wish for a better team or team-mate for my rookie season. Colin Edwards is hugely experienced, he is still very fast and as a fellow Texan he speaks my language in more ways than one! The whole Monster Tech 3 Yamaha team has been awesome since the first day and I really feel like I have the support of the factory behind us. I don’t know exactly how the YZR-M1 of Rossi or Lorenzo compares to mine but I don’t look at them on track and think ‘if I had one of those I would be doing better.’ That is probably the best thing I could wish to say about my package as a ‘satellite team’ rider.

The next few weeks promise to be the toughest of the season for me, with a lot of races in a short space of time coming at circuits I don’t know. It will be my biggest challenge yet but with the support of my team, Yamaha and all my fans and friends I am definitely ready for it. Hopefully that first podium is not too far away but as long as we keep performing to the best of our ability and keep improving I will be happy.