Aragon MotoGP: Rear tyre issue frustrates Ben

Rapidly deteriorating rear tyre grip cost Ben Spies the chance to fight for a fourth MotoGP podium of the season at the Motorland Aragon track in Spain yesterday (Sunday).

The Texan held third place for the opening eight laps before he was unable to keep a hard charging Marco Simoncelli at bay.

He claimed third back on lap 10 when Simoncelli made a mistake and almost ran off track but he could only hold onto the final rostrum position until lap 14 when factory Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo moved through.

Spies then slipped back into fifth when Simoncelli swept by on lap 17 and the 2009 World Superbike champion said: “It was pretty crap. The first few laps I was happy and got a good start and was aggressive in the first lap but I knew I couldn’t hold the lead the way Casey (Stoner) and Dani (Pedrosa) were riding.

“But I was putting an advantage on fourth and felt strong but then the rear tyre made a really big drop. Usually the tyres drop once at about ten laps and then again with five laps to go but they stay very consistent and you can ride through it and slide around a little bit.

“But on the sixth lap the tyre made a massive drop and it kept getting worse and worse for the rest of the race. I was taking some really big risks while going slow and it was very frustrating and clear on TV that I had really good pace but then all of a sudden this just hit us.

“I tried to ride around it but I would have crashed. I was honestly scared running a second and a half off the pace, so to get a top five after all that I was happy. But I believe we had a podium chance.”

Spies said he had never experienced such a sudden loss of grip with Bridgestone tyres since he moved to MotoGP in 2010.

He added: “This was not normal and I’ve never had a feeling like this from the rear. I’m not saying it was a Bridgestone problem, maybe it was a setting problem. I did ten fast laps in the warm-up and then in the race it made a nasty drop and when it started going it got worse.

“I’ve never had a tyre that looked like this one. There was a lot of rubber off the tyre and the shape of the tyre wasn’t in a normal shape. The left was worse but the right side also made a drop that it hadn’t made before. I struggled on both sides of the tyre and we didn’t make any set-up changes from the end of qualifying to the race.”

For seven pages of coverage from the Motorland Aragon race, see the September 21 issue of Motor Cycle News.