Ben Spies completed a positive day for Yamaha Factory Racing with fourth place in qualifying for the British Grand Prix, one place behind his teammate Jorge Lorenzo.
The world champions were over a second off the pace on Friday but narrowed the gap when it came to qualifying, and Spies was just 0.657s adrift of polesitter Casey Stoner.
The American had the edge on Lorenzo in morning practice but admitted he couldn't match the pace of his teammate when it mattered, and claimed that a mistake on his fastest lap wouldn't have changed matters.
“It was a good day today, we made some improvements to the bike and then tried some different tyres to evaluate and see if they are going to be race tyres for tomorrow if it's dry. Qualifying went well, when we tried to nail our fast lap we didn't quite get it all in there, I left out a couple of tenths but they wouldn't have moved me further up anyway, just a bit closer to Jorge. I gave it my maximum and we're starting in a good position so we need to get a good start and of course see what the weather is going to do!”
With his riders lining up third and fourth, and wet conditions possible, Team Director Massimo Meregalli feels that victory isn't out of the question if the Silverstone weather plays its' part.
“Overall we should be satisfied with the second day. We have our riders on the first and second row and we led part of the practice. We've got a good pace and I think we did a good job today, the team worked really hard. We're confident and I think we can get good results. Tomorrow I think it's going to rain but we saw yesterday that in the wet conditions we can be quick so we'll see what happens.”
