Spies delight at championship lead
Added on Monday, September 7th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Spies has turned an 88-point deficit on Haga at Round Six to an 18-point lead with three rounds to go.
Ben Spies was unsurprisingly delighted at taking the lead in the World Superbike Championship after a first and second place finish at the Nurburgring.
The WSB rookie leapfrogged veteran rider Noriyuki Haga after the Japanese rider faltered to take a 18-point lead in the standings with just three rounds of the season to go.
Spies’ cause was aided by Haga’s crash in race two in Germany and after finishing ahead of the Ducati rider in the opening race, it’s advantage to the Texan as the championship heads into the closing stages.
“The first race was tough,” admitted Spies. “Rea and I battled a bit for the first couple of laps and Nori got away so I had to reel him back in, using a lot of my tyre to do that.
“When I got to him I knew he was really strong in the first few corners so I slowed the pace a bit and controlled him through there. With three laps to go we pulled the pin and got back down to some fast laps.
“The second race was a tough one, I didn’t get a great start and had to spend some time working through the pack, when I eventually got up to Rea he had a great pace on so I tucked in and was waiting for him to make a mistake, which unfortunately he didn’t! I used up a lot of my tyres fighting through the pack and was starting to slide around a bit at the end so tucked in and took the points.
“It’s fantastic to be leading the championship; it’s what we came here to do, so we’re looking forward to getting to Imola and seeing if we can build on this. The team have been brilliant, and have worked really hard all weekend.”
