Grey skies and a damp track made a washout of today’s first practice sessions for the Grand Prix of San Marino with only a few riders taking to the track. Yamaha Factory Racing rider Ben Spies covered just six laps in the morning session and four in the afternoon. The Texan’s efforts were simply to test the track conditions as no valuable data could be gained for Sunday’s race which is forecast for sunshine.

Team mate Jorge Lorenzo decided to stay inside today, conserving valuable kilometres of engine life and again wisely choosing to avoid any unnecessary risks to gain little valuable set up data.

An otherwise dull day was brightened by not just one but two MotoGP legends from Yamaha’s racing past arriving in the garage to chat with the riders. 15 time World Championship winner Giacomo Agostini was the first to appear, soon followed by Yamaha’s first ever world title holder Phil Read.

Ben Spies - Position 8th - Time 1.46.471 - Laps 8

“We didn’t really get anything from the few laps we did, it’s been pretty much a waste of a day for everybody. We can’t control the weather and unfortunately it was just too mixed conditions to do anything. We did a couple of laps to check everything was ok just in case qualifying is like that so we have a feeling for it. Other than that we just sat around, drank coffee and watched everybody!”


Jorge Lorenzo

“I’m so tired, we did so many laps today and now I need a big rest and a massage! Seriously though, we didn’t even go out, it just wasn’t necessary for us, we wanted to save the engine life and also save some energy. Tomorrow we will see what happens with the weather. Today was not completely wet or completely dry so useless.”

Wilco Zeelenberg - YART Monster Energy Yamaha Team Manager

“A waste of a day, we were smart not to go out, there was really nothing to gain or learn. If it was really wet we would have liked to go out but today there’s a risk of hurting yourself for no reason.”


Massimo Meregalli - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director

“Unfortunately we wasted time today. We couldn’t test anything except a few laps to check how the track conditions were. I think if I have to find something positive to say it’s that we didn’t make any mileage on Jorge’s engine!”


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