Le Mans MotoGP: Ben Spies happy with eighth

Ben Spies wasted no time in mastering the iconic Le Mans circuit after he ended opening practice in an encouraging eighth place.

The Texan clocked a best time of 1.35.291 to finish just 0.889s slower than Valentino Rossi despite only having an hour on track at the French venue, home of Spies’ Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad.

Spies missed the top six by just over 0.2s as he demonstrated again what a fast learner he is, quickly getting to grips with a circuit he’d only ever seen on TV.

Spies, who was forced to retire from the last round in Jerez after a mystery front tyre issue, said: “It was a pretty good session. Early on the main focus is just to learn the track and I felt good pretty much all over the track apart from a couple of points that I figured out right at the end.

“The track doesn’t have anything super tricky to learn but I’ve still got to get my bearings at Turn One a little bit, but for an hour I got a lot accomplished. We can make some changes and I’m sure we can find a bit of time in the bike.

“The front-end can be dialled in a little bit better but because I don’t really have the experience at this track, it is hard to know what the bike is capable of. But I feel like there’s a couple of tenths in the bike and me.

“I’m under a second off the best time and in the top ten and that is my target right now. I don’t believe in the next session I’ll be running at the front, but I can certainly cut the gap and move up a bit more.”