Jerez MotoGP: Mystery front tyre issue costs Ben Spies

An undiagnosed front tyre issue left Ben Spies contemplating what might have been after the Texan was forced to retire in the early stages of yesterday’s Spanish MotoGP race. 

Boosted by a brilliant fourth place in the pre-race warm-up session, Spies was confident of at least emulating his excellent fifth place in the season’s opening race in Qatar.   

The reigning World Superbike champion looked even more of a top five contender when he claimed two places on the first lap to slot menacingly behind 2007 world champion Casey Stoner’s factory Ducati GP10.

But no sooner had the race started to gather momentum, Spies hit unexpected trouble.

On the second lap he’d already dropped nearly two seconds off the pace of leader Dani Pedrosa and just a lap later he plummeted down to ninth.

Spies opted to continue despite severe front-end handling issues but slipping down to 12th, he decided to retire at the end of lap eight.

The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team revealed checks to Spies’ front tyre had shown up no obvious external damage or fault.

Spies, who had started eighth on the grid, said “I got the short end this weekend. Honestly it was disappointing because I had a good warm-up and a good start and I was behind the players of the race who I wanted to be behind.

“As soon as everybody got settled and the race started picking up, I just started running into some problems. Looking at the data I could see in some spots on the track I was doing exactly the same thing I’d been doing all weekend but the bike just wasn’t responding like it had been.

“I tried to do a couple of different things in the race but it was frustrating. I was way slower than I knew what was possible with the conditions. I nearly crashed a few times and if I had carried on it would have been a big risk to crash. It is a bit of mystery really but it just didn’t happen today.”

Spies said he had toyed with the idea of inserting a new front wheel into his YZR-M1 machine in the hope of salvaging some points, but he added: “I thought about it. The best-case scenario was a couple of people crashed and I’d get a point or two but for where I’m at in the championship it is not like I’m battling for the top spot or a top three.

“It is another 24 hard laps on an engine and with not finishing in the top ten I decided to stop. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go back out there but I wasn’t going to gain a lot of confidence.”