Ben Spies helped Yamaha celebrate its 50th Anniversary of Grand Prix Racing in Assen today with his first MotoGP victory. Starting from second on the grid, Spies put in some flawless laps at the beginning of the race to create a significant gap over Casey Stoner (Honda) who would eventually finish in second place. Spies seemed to have the measure of Stoner throughout the race. Stoner indicated he was still sore from a crash earlier this weekend, but congratulated Spies on a near flawless race. Stoner’s teammate Andrea Dovizioso brought his Honda home in third place.
Marco Simoncelli (Honda) crashed on cold tires on the opening lap causing defending champ Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) to go down as well. Lorenzo remounted his bike and charged back to finish in sixth position, just behind the Ducati duo of Valentino Rossi (finishing fourth) and Nicky Hayden (fifth).
Stoner stretched his points lead over Lorenzo in the championship. For additional details, points and results, visit the official MotoGP site.
FINALLY got around to watching the race. It was good by way of the fact that Ben won! Great to see him snatch his first victory of many. He walked away from the pack and it was great to see. Of course Stoner was crying about the Bridgestones not warming up -no excuses mate!
Can’t wait to cheer Ben on at Laguna Seca and Brno!
So whatever happened to Karel Abraham?
Next race in Mugello. Simoncelli is going to be really pumped up. Better for the rest of the field to let him in front initially so he can crash on his own and then get on with the race.
This will be the first of many! That was a fast trip to the top of the podium. Less than a year and a half! Well done1
Yes but not as fast as Troy Bayliss! 1 race, 1 win.
Seriously its a pretty reasonable effort from Mr Spies – hopefully he can push on and win a few more races.
Great to see the new guard taking over MotoGP. Love Spies’ smooth riding style like I loved Mladin’s style and love Max Biaggi’s riding style. Clean and smooth.
I’m not American, so I have limited viewing experience of the AMA Superbike series to draw from, but that’s the Spies I remember seeing on a Yoshimura Suzuki (and some races in his WSBK title-winning season as well) …. lap after lap with robotic consistency, elbows way down (okay, maybe not so much at Assen), front-end as planted as Biaggi/Kato-era 250. Awesome to study, even if the race was pretty dull.
Congrats to Ben Spies. Must be special to get his first win at the “Cathedral” wearing classic Yamaha colours.
Personally I didn’t find it an exciting race but I imagine it would be for any Spies fans waiting for his time on the podeum. Once Simoncelli took himself and Lorenzo out the order stayed fairly predictable. Racing, yes, exciting..not so much.
Agreed. Not a ton of action after the first couple of laps. When the leader runs away and hides, not much to discuss. It was interesting to watch Dovi stay with Stoner. Don’t know if Stoner was slow or Dovi fast, but it’s one of the first times his been able t maintain contact.
Spies got a whiff of a win and checked out.
it was apparent from practice times that the yamahas were keeping up with the hondas at this track. once jorge went down, i bet stoner turned it down a notch – get on the podium safely and still gain tons of ground on the 2nd place guy in the standings. my money says if jorge wasn’t taken out, spies doesn’t finish with an 8 second margin. we’d have seen a 3 way dogfight at the front.
I think my TV is broken and showing the wrong race – Stoner took Dovi in the 2nd lap and beat him by 20 seconds whilst riding to conserve the championship. Said in the post race his tyres were so cold after following Dovi he had to start trying to put heat into them – not the greatest of things to say about your team mate!
One of the more exciting races in MotoGP in recent years. At first I thought Ben might have been given significant advantage over the crash. However watching the lap timer, he continued to gain or hold pace over Casey. What an exciting career to witness.
You are kidding – aren’t you? Just trying to wind us all up? The single most boring race of the year. They just get worse and worse. Not so super Sic should repay the 50K spectators who saw an exciting afternoon destroyed (again) in the first minute. Pity the camera men trying to find anything at all interesting.
Out qualified Lorenzo by a significant margin, wire-to-wire win.
The first, not the last.
Awesome result for Spies.
From the start, he was the guy who was going to win that race.
By now, Simoncelli must know he has a problem to get over.
Hearing some real gripes with the Bridgestone tires from the riders.
Reminds me of Michelin a few years ago.
re: “Hearing some real gripes with the Bridgestone tires from the riders.
Reminds me of Michelin a few years ago.”
not sure what they’re griping about…? it’s assen, mix conditions in the lead-up, and all of 60 degrees with high humidity on race day…? full wets seem to work well enough at silverstone. everybody was hauling ass.
You need to watch the post-race press conferrence video at Assen.
Stoner was asked if he thought Bridgestone were doing enough as far as providing tires, his answer was, “No.”, and that he felt the tires were better in 2008.
He went on to explain that the riders feel changes have to be made, specifically to how long they take to warm-up.
This video can be seen at MotoGP.com
great decision for Honda to hire some clown to ride like an ass and take someone out every week… but not have to look like he’s honda cuz he’s not on a repsol bike.
Yamaha should hire some ass who will never win at this level just to totally take out a bunch of other people and make it easier for their REAL racers to look good on paper in the standings.
We could call it the simoncelli strategy.
Your theory would have better creditability if Simoncelli didn’t have a knack for qualifying on the first row all the time. The guy has talent just need to settle his nerves down.
I have a feeling this is why stewart isn’t competing in outdoor motocross this year….
It was only a matter of time for Ben. This won’t be his last win.