Rizla Suzuki impressed with Spies debut

Spies ended the day less than 1.5 seconds behind teammate Chris Vermeulen - despite having never the ridden the MotoGP bike or at Donington Park before.

Team manager Paul Denning said everyone at the Japanese manufacturer was impressed with how Spies had gone.

"In the team's opinion Ben's performance today has been outstanding," he said. "We have to remember he only rode the 2007 GSV-R for about two hours at Valencia in November last year, and that Donington Park is completely new to him.

"Learning a new racetrack is one thing, but learning to ride a new machine with different tyres on a new racetrack is another thing altogether - and pretty difficult to do as well

"To get into the 1:30s on the first day is a fantastic achievement and he is serious about going a fair bit faster still. We are really looking forward to hopefully getting more dry time tomorrow to see how fast he can go."

Spies is hoping that the rain holds off at Donington Park so he can gain more experience of the bike prior to his MotoGP debut on Sunday.

"I'm not used to being this far back in the field, but with what we are trying to achieve here this weekend I've got to be pleased with how it has gone today," he explained.

"This is the first time I've been on this bike and the first time I've ever been to Donington, so realistically only being about a second off a decent pace is pretty good.

"I feel we can be competitive if we can get more dry time and every time we have gone out we've knocked off a second, so if we continue with that we'll be good.

"I'm getting more comfortable on the bike and it's working great, the crew have been real good and it's me right now that needs to learn the track a bit more every time out.

"Hopefully it will come good tomorrow and we'll be able to get up and into the middle of the pack."