Kevin Schwantz, a living legend MotoGP in 1993, make a statement that Ben pies will win a race in this season as his rookie year. Spies has one pole, two front-row starts, a pair of top-three finishes and is sixth in MotoGP standing behind Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner.
“To beat Mat Mladin three years in a row was never going to be an easy feat,” Schwantz began. “The intensity that Ben had even then—‘What’s Mat doing? How is he humiliating me every weekend?’—set a fire inside him. I think Ben continues to feed off that intensity. He realizes that these guys are that much better. Now, he’s made a consistent bridge to that front group. He’s able to qualify and run with Dovizioso, Rossi, Lorenzo and Pedrosa.
“Every lap, every corner, he’s learning. He’s making notes. He’s communicating with [Tech 3 crew chief Tom] Houseworth. What they have now is all that data to show him what Colin [Edwards] is doing, what some of the other Yamaha guys are doing, to help him learn where he needs to improve. He studies that stuff like there’s no tomorrow.
“This was the first weekend, with the exception of Qatar, that Lorenzo hasn’t been the top-finishing Yamaha. It will be interesting to see what happens next year when Ben is Lorenzo’s teammate.”
