A new rider moving to a new World championship series, on an all-new bike, racing on unfamiliar tracks, is not supposed to find pole position once during his rookie season. Ben Spies has earned pole position at each of the first two races in the WSB series this year, including one earned earlier today in Qatar. If he hadn’t visited the gravel trap during the first race at Round 1, Spies might also be the winner of each race to date. As it is, he has one win to go with his two pole positions.
When the clock stopped on his quickest lap today, Spies was on pace with the fourth quickest rider (Chris Vermeulen) at the recently completed Qatar MotoGP tests.
Spies is a special talent, for sure, but his teammate Tom Sykes has been quick on the new Yamaha R1, as well. For a brand new machine, the R1 superbike is pretty well dialed in, and this spells trouble for Spies’ WSB competitors.
