2009 World Superbike Champion Ben Spies, atop his Sterilgarda Yamaha, Ben Spies was placed into the first free practice session of the weekend at the Valencia MotoGP on Friday. Despite being the American’s first outing on the Yamaha YZR-M1, Spies progressed well, improving by nearly five seconds over the tight and sinuous Spanish course of the session and finishing just over a second off the top five in 15th position. Spies made few changes to his M1, preferring to get as much track time in as possible as he begins to understand the different handling and power characteristics compared to his championship winning Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike.

Tomorrow morning will see Spies looking to bring the set up of his bike further in line with his style of riding ahead of his first GP qualifying session on a Yamaha.

“It was actually a really good first session,” said Spies who stopped the clocks with a best lap of 1:35.052. “Position wise it wasn’t what we are used to but I haven’t ridden a GP bike for a year and it’s the first time I’ve set foot on a Yamaha so to be realistically only a second off being in the mix is pretty good. For the first day, and only 20 laps on the bike I’m happy. I’m starting to understand some of the characteristics of the M1. I’m going to keep baby steps and keep chipping away.”

Added Massimo Meregalli, Sterilgarda Yamaha Team Manager: “For the first day here in this world with no experience on this bike or with these tires Ben did as usual a good job, but we didn’t expect anything else. For sure just one practice is not enough time to say too much but we cannot say that we are not satisfied. Ben didn’t want to use more than one set of tires, he just wanted to spend some time on his bike and get used to the differences from his Superbike. Tomorrow he will make another step, I’m very optimistic as I was all season with him.”