Photo by Tim White

After the MotoGP post-race press conference at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, third-place-finisher Ben Spies stuck around to answer a few more questions. Actually, Spies posed the first question.

“Am I mad about the start?”

Shuffled backward in the tight opening series of corners, Spies dropped from second on the grid to ninth at the end of the first lap.

“[Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso] got into [Turn 4] a little hot and was coming back across,” said Spies. “His line was a little bit different than the normal line, but I don’t think he did it intentionally. I wish it wouldn’t have happened, but it made my race more interesting.”

Interesting, indeed. By the end of the 28-lap race, Spies was matching or even bettering winner Casey Stoner’s lap times. Another journalist wondered if Spies could envision what the outcome might have been if he’d gotten a better start.

“If you do that when you race in this sport, you’ll never sleep,” replied Spies. “I’m happy with the race. The start and first half weren’t ideal, but that’s racing. We made a lot of good passes and got on the podium again. That’s the first goal. We’ll just try to do better next weekend.”

Asked about the track conditions during the race, Spies shrugged. “It was the same as yesterday. It’s a difficult track. The hardest thing for me, honestly, after the Moto2 race, there were hundreds of balls of rubber in every corner. It kind of messed with my vision. I don’t understand why it was like that, but other riders said the same thing. So, it was quite difficult to see and concentrate fully.”

Following a slow start, Spies’ first season in the factory Yamaha squad is beginning to turn around. “We had bad luck in the beginning—a couple of crashes, a small mechanical, things like that,” he said. “It wasn’t a lack of speed. We’ve won a race and been on the podium three times this year, so I’ve got to be happy with that. We’ve just got to keep rolling.”

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