Ben Spies

After months of speculation, finally the deal is done. Ben Spies will not be riding in MotoGP in 2009. But the triple AMA champion will be leaving America: as reported earlier, Spies will be joining the factory-supported Yamaha Motor Italia team in the World Superbikes championship.

The move has been in the air for a while now. After Suzuki failed to secure Spies the ride in MotoGP he longed for, it was increasingly likely that Spies would look elsewhere for a ride. The American was linked for a while with JiR Honda in MotoGP, but once it became clear that Luca Montiron would not be given an RC212V to contest, that deal imploded.

Spies' motivation in the press release announcing the move is interesting, and worthy of note. Spies says "after considering my offers it became obvious to me that Yamaha would be a great home. Yamaha was excited about the possibility of me joining them and they just made me feel like I was coming into a great family. You look at how Yamaha treats its riders and how, even after their careers are over, they’re always part of the Yamaha family. That was really important to me. I’m looking forward to the challenge at hand and to work with Yamaha to produce a winning team and ultimately a World Superbike Championship."

After earlier speculation that Ben Spies was to take Colin Edwards' place at the Tech 3 Yamaha team, with Edwards moving back to the World Superbike championship where he won two titles, it looks like the swap is off. The British racing publication Bikesport News is reporting that Spies will be going to World Superbikes after all, joining the factory supported Yamaha Motor Italia team to ride the new long bang Yamaha YZF R1.

Yamaha's World Superbike team had already confirmed to MotoGPMatters that the team was interested in Spies, but BSN is quoting "sources close to Spies" that the American triple AMA champion has inked a deal to join Tom Sykes in World Superbikes. The official announcement is expected this week.

The move would still leave the door open for a swap. In Sykes and Spies, the Yamaha team would have two class rookies, neither of whom knows the bike or the tracks. Having Edwards move into the WSBK team, and pushing Spies forward into the MotoGP team would allow both Spies and Sykes to be partnered by men with experience of the tracks, making finding a setup for the bike that little bit easier.

For the moment, though, that's just speculation. That Spies will be on a Yamaha next year is virtually certain. That he will be riding in World Superbikes is extremely likely. But either way, Spies will finally have the chance to show what he is capable of on the world stage.

Since Colin Edwards finally wrapped up his contract to ride for Tech 3 Yamaha again next year, there's been little discussion of the situation at Yamaha, with all 4 seats firmly settled.

Or so it seemed. While the situation at Yamaha in MotoGP looked settled, the same could not be said for World Superbikes. The Yamaha Motor Italia team lost both its big name riders for next season, with Noriyuki Haga going to Xerox Ducati and Troy Corser joining BMW's fledgeling World Superbike effort. And so far, the team has only signed the British Superbikes star Tom Sykes to fill one of the seats.

So obviously, speculation has been rampant on who is to fill the other seat at the Yamaha factory Superbike team. Though Sylvain Guintoli tested for the team a week ago, the name that keeps popping up in this regard is the American Ben Spies. After Suzuki failed to provide him with the MotoGP ride he thought he had in the bag, Spies has been looking elsewhere, and specifically to other manufacturers, to provide him with a ride on the world stage.

But along with all the rumors linking Spies to the Yamaha World Superbike ride comes some even more intriguing speculation. During the BBC broadcast of the Motegi MotoGP round, commentator Matt Roberts mentioned that there was a strong rumor that Yamaha were trying to persuade Colin Edwards to give up his Tech 3 Yamaha seat and switch to World Superbikes to ride their brand new R1.

When the split between the JIR and Team Scot sections of Team Scot JIR was announced at Laguna Seca in July, speculation immediately began on who would get the Honda RC212V the joint team was running. JIR - Japan Italy Racing, run by Luca Montiron - held the contract with Honda for a bike and a start license, while Team Scot brought sponsorship money, an outstanding pit crew, and the extraordinarily talented Andrea Dovizioso.

Though JIR held all the paperwork and contracts, the team had been heading ever more rapidly downhill since they switched from Bridgestone tires to Michelins in 2005, eventually fatally injuring the careers of Makoto Tamada and Shinya Nakano. By joining forces with Team Scot, who have been immensely successful in the 250 and 125 classes despite riding seriously underpowered Hondas, and fielding the extremely talented Andrea Dovizioso, the team had been transformed, with Dovi currently standing 5th in the championship, and the team not far behind the Gresini and Alice teams in the team standings, despite scoring points with only one rider.

So the decision was always likely to come down to Honda's view of the future of the team. JIR's track record of running and managing a team was patchy at best, and though Luca Montiron was rumored to have an option on triple AMA Superbike champion Ben Spies, he looked to have the weaker hand.

Due to personal circumstances - a long-deserved and hard-earned (by my wife) vacation in Spain - there won't be an Indianapolis race report for a week or so. Which is a real shame, as the race had plenty of incidents to talk about.

As a consolation, here's the transcripts of the podium press conference, as well as a selection of quotes from some of the riders involved in the race. Thanks to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and their amazingly efficient PR team for providing the information so quickly and smoothly.

For most of this year, qualifying has followed a reasonably predictable pattern. A couple of laps after his out lap, Casey Stoner would seize pole position, gradually turning the thumbscrews on the rest of the field. About halfway through the session, Randy de Puniet would be the first rider out on qualifying tires and snatch pole from Stoner. His glory would be short-lived, however, lasting only until Stoner threw on the first set of qualifiers, then the process would repeat itself, the only real question being how big Stoner's margin would be over the rest, and whether Valentino Rossi would manage to qualify on the front row.

The inaugural Indianapolis MotoGP race was anything but predictable, and turned into one of the most fascinating and thrilling sessions of the entire year. This may have been due to the fact that the session was the first truly dry outing of the weekend, with both Friday's sessions having been held in torrential rain, and Saturday's morning free practice session starting off damp, and only really drying out towards the end. And so for most teams, the first 20 minutes of the session were spent searching for some kind of dry weather set up, before they could even think about qualifying.

The session started much as expected, with Casey Stoner the first rider to crack into the 1'43s, but just 10 minutes into the session, the fast laps were flying thick and fast. Ben Spies, Sylvain Guintoli, Nicky Hayden, Jorge Lorenzo, Randy de Puniet and Toni Elias all held provisional pole at one point, as the times edged towards the mid-1'43 mark, and beyond. 

But with 20 minutes of the session gone, the really fast times started to shake out. Naturally, the first of the fastest was Casey Stoner, the Australian shaving nearly 3/10ths off Elias' time with a lap of 1'43.105, but he wasn't to be the only quick man. Just a couple of minutes later, Valentino Rossi took 8/100ths off Stoner's provisional pole, improving to 1'43.021.

Rossi wasn't finished there: his provisional pole was just the first in a sequence of fast laps, eventually taking pole down to 1'42.945. But Rossi wasn't the only rider capable of running fast on race tires. Nicky Hayden was running low 1'43s, smoking his rear tire in crowd-pleasing fashion through some of the long left handers, while Toni Elias was also getting quicker. So quick, in fact, that the Spaniard took his Alice Ducati to provisional pole with an impressive 1'42.741, 2/10ths quicker than Rossi's previous time.

With all of the rumors floating around during MotoGP's traditional silly season, it's nice to get some official news of actual contracts. And the first announcement is the least surprising. In an official press release from Rizla Suzuki, the team has confirmed that both Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen are to stay with Suzuki for 2009.

Capirossi's contract had been all but confirmed over the past few weeks, but Vermeulen's future was less certain. The Australian had offers from a number of other teams, including a rumored option to be Troy Bayliss' replacement at the factory Ducati team in World Superbikes, but wanted to stay in MotoGP, and with a factory team.

The question on everybody's lips, but the question least likely to be answered, is whether Vermeulen was forced to take a pay cut. There were strong rumors that part of the delay in reupping with Vermeulen was due to the Australian missing a performance clause in his existing contract which would have seen him automatically extend his contract on similar terms. Suzuki was believed to want to cut his salary in half, but it is unlikely that Vermeulen would have settled for this.

Ben Spies progress into MotoGP, a path that looked so easy at the beginning of the year, has stalled, or so it seems. After Suzuki first failed to provide a third bike, and then decided to concentrate firstly on retaining their current rider line up, Spies had turned his attention elsewhere.

Reports started to surface about a possible link up with Honda, and especially a seat at Gresini. But the problem was Spies' salary demands, his expectations inflated from riding in the extremely well-funded AMA Superbike championship. With the AMA series in disarray after the takeover by the DMG, and the manufacturers looking likely to either pull out of racing in the US or set up a rival series, the US distributors suddenly seemed to have a surplus in their marketing budgets, and the press put two and two together, figuring that American Honda could well be interested in picking up the tab for Spies' salary. Nicky Hayden's impending departure from the Repsol team to Ducati was thought to have forced the issue, with American Honda wanting an American on a Honda in MotoGP.

According to Superbikeplanet.com's Dean Adams, however, when the press in Europe put two and two together, they came up with 37. Adams is reporting that American Honda has categorically denied being willing to pay Spies' salary if he rides for the Gresini Honda MotoGP team. If American Honda does have any excess budget for 2009, then they are unwilling to spend it at Gresini.

There are points during the year when the so-called silly season - the period during which contract negotiations hot up and rumors about who will be riding wear start circulating furiously - becomes so febrile that it becomes hard to tell where insider gossip ends and psychedelic speculation begins. At these times - usually shortly after the summer break, and once a major name has switched rides, freeing up the rest of the market to move - speculation about who will go where ceases to be an educated guessing game of which riders would be the best match with which teams, and becomes more like just linking every possible rider with every team with a possible empty seat, in the hope of getting it right thanks solely to the laws of statistics. Consequently, during these periods the silly season is not so much silly as just plain ridiculous.

Now appears to be such a time. Once Marco Melandri officially announced that he would be leaving Ducati, and then confirmed he would be riding for Kawasaki, the rest of the market seemed to fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle. Nicky Hayden would go to Ducati, Andrea Dovizioso would go to Repsol Honda, and if Suzuki kept both their riders, then Ben Spies would go to Gresini Honda, courtesy of American Honda.

But that was before the madness struck. Earlier, we reported that Ben Spies had been talking to Ducati for a seat in World Superbikes, though Ducati are far from enamored of his wage demands. And now, according to the otherwise reputable Spanish magazine Motociclismo, a whole bunch of the other deals we thought were already cemented are up in the air as well.

Perhaps the least exotic of these rumors is one which has been raised earlier. After failing to meet performance targets that would have automatically given him another year at Suzuki, Chris Vermeulen is currently in the midst of renegotiating a contract with Suzuki. The problem here is that Suzuki, though they are keen to retain Vermeulen's services, are only willing to do so at less than half his current salary. As much as Vermeulen wants to stay in MotoGP, such a pay cut may make sticking with Suzuki a rather unpalatable prospect, and the Australian may instead choose to replace Troy Bayliss at the Xerox Ducati factory team in World Superbikes. If Vermeulen does stay in MotoGP, Suzuki isn't his only option: he also has options with Gresini Honda and Kawasaki.

Earlier today, we reported on rumors that Ben Spies was in the frame for the Factory Ducati ride in World Superbikes. We also mentioned that there was one problem standing in the way of a Spies - Ducati World Superbike deal, and that was Ducati's need to have an Italian rider on the team.

Well, it seems there is another, more serious problem, and one that seems to be a factor in every deal that Spies is linked with: the question of money. Like many of the riders in the AMA Superbike championship, Spies is extremely well paid. Like those riders, though, Spies is also aware that though an AMA title is nice, it doesn't have the status or the standing of a world championship. If Spies wants to know how he measures up against the rest of the world, he will have to head to Europe to ride in a series with a world title at stake.

And here's where the two desires clash: When Spies tells the teams who are interested in him as a rider how much money he needs as a base salary, they lose interest in him quicker than a teenage boy who has just spotted an oversized adam's apple. His reputed wage claim of US$ 2 million is bigger than anyone else in World Superbikes, and matches - and probably beats - most of the factory riders in MotoGP. For a rookie coming into a series, that's just way too much to be asking.

At the beginning of this season, it all seemed pretty clear: In 2009, Ben Spies would be riding a Suzuki in MotoGP. Right now, two-thirds of the way in to the series, that early certainty has all but disappeared. For a number of reasons, most of which involve money in one form or another, the chances of American MotoGP fans seeing Ben Spies on a Rizla Suzuki next year have all but disappeared.

That leaves Spies in a quandary. The Texan does still have options in MotoGP, but these would not be in a factory team, leaving him waiting for important upgrades if the bike turns out not to be competitive. And with Spies' best MotoGP option currently with Gresini Honda, that is a bigger risk than it may seem. Ever since the switch to the 800cc formula, which Honda were expected to dominate, Honda riders - factory and satellite alike - have struggled, with only Dani Pedrosa capable of being truly competitive aboard the RC212V.

And so with Spies  looking to ensure factory-level support, he is being forced to explore other options. One of these options, reported by the German website Motorsport-Total and the online magazine GPWeek, is a switch to the World Superbike series. There is already plenty of interest, with Alstare Suzuki's team manager Francis Batta expressing a keen interest in Spies at the recent World Superbike round at Utah, but now an even more attractive option has opened up.

The announcement that Team Scot and the JiR team of Luca Montiron were to split up has raised questions in the paddock about what effect this will have on the size of the grid, and how the spoils would be divided. It was generally assumed that Montiron's role in MotoGP was finished, and that Team Scot, having turned the worst team in the paddock into a model of efficiency, would stay in MotoGP, most likely with Yuki Takahashi, their current 250cc rider, taking the seat Andrea Dovizioso will vacate when he leaves for Repsol Honda.

But in an interview with GPOne.com's Alberto Cani, Montiron claimed that he will have a Honda, a title sponsor, and either Alex de Angelis or Nicky Hayden as a rider for next year. Montiron told GPOne.com that he has already presented his plans to Honda, and that these plans would include a big-name rider. Montiron confirmed that Alex de Angelis is one of the riders he is interested in. The other "big name " is believed to be Nicky Hayden, but Hayden is almost certain to sign with Ducati for 2009.

No need for an introduction this time, just straight into more of Jules Cisek's fabulous photographs from Laguna Seca.

Typical Californian weather: foggy and cold

You know you're in trouble when you have to use intermediates in the dry

Of course, if you had Bridgestones, the conditions didn't bother you

Dean

Laguna's front straight, not long, but still fast