Misano MotoGP: Track bump to blame for Ben Spies's qualifying crash

The American had been running very strongly when, 24 minutes from the session's end, he lost the front of his bike on the exit of the first corner.

At the time he had just been demoted to third fastest by Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, having previously spent much of the session in second behind eventual poleman Dani Pedrosa.

He eventually wound up eighth, 1.1s down on Pedrosa.

"It was unfortunate this afternoon, we just got off the line a little and hit a bump in turn one," Spies explained.

The consequence of that crash was worsened by the lack of previous practice running, which prompted most riders - Spies among them - to focus the majority of their set-up efforts on just one bike.

"That was the bike with the set-up we were comfortable with," he added.

"I had to go out on the other bike and there was no time to change the set-up.

"We still need to make some changes to the other set-up for tomorrow as we know we had some things to work on before the crash.

"I'm actually confident we can go pretty quick but with the way the weekend has been we haven't had enough dry time yet to finalise a perfect set-up."