We’ll it seems that the silly season is almost over, there are still some rides up for grabs but most of the factory teams have selected their riders. It is of course old news now but Ben Spies has decided to go to Tech 3 in Moto GP. I don’t know that that is such a good move since several World Superbike riders have tried their hand at Moto GP and failed. Take James Toseland for example who has two world championships to his name and his team Colin Edwards. Sure Colin has performed better than James but he’s hardly a regular race winner.

Ben Spies has only ridden one season of Superbike and while he has impressed, he hasn’t won a title and he might not this year. One of the problems is that he has been so fast this year that the world media has led him to believe that he is invincible. The wild card ride at Valencia should give us a clue to his ability on the bike. Yamaha have effectively done a straight swap and brought Toeseland back to Superbikes, as I predicted although it was a bit more roundabout than that, the net result is the same.

Ben certainly rode a brilliant first race at Magney Cours in the first heat and even when he made a mistake, he came straight back and kept Haga behind him. Haga was also impressive showing that he hasn’t lost the fight and still desperately wants the title. The second race was less kind to Spies with, what appeared to be the wrong tyre choice. Fortunes were mixed for Haga. It was fortunate for him that Spies chose the wrong tyre but unfortunate that he didn’t get the advantage he should have. Usually if you get so far ahead of your opponent in Superbikes, there are a lot more riders in between the two. How often is 4^th place 17 seconds behind the winner?

We here at Drive are big fans of our local boy Sheridan Morais so it was disappointing to see a lacklustre performance from him. I still believe he has got what it takes so I hope that doesn’t jeopardise his chances of a ride next year. Wouldn’t it be good to see him on the Factory Kawasaki next year along side Chris Vermeulen?

Sheridan Morais

I tipped Johnny Rea for big things at the beginning of the year but his performance has been inconsistent to say the least. Surprisingly, he seems to have been over riding the bike these last couple of weekends, which only started happening after he re-signed for next year and doesn’t need to impress to stay in the team.

Going back to Moto GP, it was great to see Casey Stoner back even though I’m not really a fan. What I do like to see though is racing and it would appear that there are only four riders capable of winning races, Casey being one of them. I’m not sure what happened to Rossi but I have no doubt that he will be back fighting next race. It does of course, keep the championship alive for a bit longer but I still have my money on the Italian.