Spies rues lack of confidence in Yamaha bike
Added on Friday, April 1st, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor
Spies rues lack of confidence in Yamaha bike
Yamaha rider Ben Spies has admitted that he has little confidence in his YZF-M1 to put in a blistering lap time, believing that a lot of work needs to be done to make the Yamaha a title-contender.
The American rider, in his first season with the Yamaha team, posted a time of 1:40.887 in the morning practice session in Jerez, the seventh fastest of the session and 1.336 seconds off the pace set by leader Casey Stoner.
And Spies believes that whilst he can put in consistent lap times throughout a session, he lacks the confidence in the bike to open up the throttle and post a pole-contending time.
“I learned some stuff but honestly I just didn’t have a lot of confidence in the bike, and when that happens you’re not going to do too good obviously,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of ideas for tomorrow. We definitely do need to make a difference.
“I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the bike, therefore I rode like crap too. When we get the bike working better, hopefully there will be more confidence and I can ride better – and I think that can happen.
“I’ve got full faith in the crew. We’re going to go back to what we know and try something a little bit different.
“Sometimes it’s a frustrating day and then a good weekend if we can learn from it.”
Spies added that he believes the problem is a slight set-up issue rather than anything fundamental with the Yamaha.
“It was just confidence in the front of the bike,” he said. “I could run a set lap time that wasn’t bad but wasn’t impressive, all day long.
“As long as we can get the thing working a little bit better, we’ll be fine. It’s Friday, we’ve got good weather for tomorrow so hopefully the guys will put their heads together and get something better and I’ll be able to ride it for them.”
