Yamaha to rally round luckless Ben Spies

Yamaha is confident Ben Spies can bounce back from recent disasters in Laguna Seca and Indianapolis with a strong performance in this weekend’s Czech Republic MotoGP clash in Brno.~

The Texan was on course to score his first podium of a nightmare campaign in Indianapolis last weekend when his factory Yamaha YZR-M1 suffered a spectacular engine blow-up while he was lying second behind Dani Pedrosa.

The Indianapolis technical failure came hot on the heels of another mechanical meltdown at Laguna Seca last month when Spies was holding fourth, only for the 2009 World Superbike champion to crash out when his swingarm broke.

Spies, who will quit Yamaha at the end of 2012, said he has never experienced such rotten luck at any other time in his racing career.

His run of misfortune started at the season’s opening race in Qatar when a cracked rear seat unit saw him slump outside of the top 10.

And a badly chunked Bridgestone rear tyre also cost Spies a rostrum finish in Assen.
His team boss Massimo Meregalli told MCN: “I feel really sorry for Ben. I have never seen anybody have such bad luck like this in 20 years in racing. The team will continue to put as much effort in as we can and I am pretty sure that he is a professional guy and he won’t give up. We still believe that we can at least get some luck. He came from Laguna after a bad result and he was very positive in Indianapolis and we won’t give up.”