Today Ben Spies did exactly what he said he'd do yesterday. Riding at "about 70%," he took his time in the first fifteen minutes which he described as 'crap.' The second quarter-hour was a bit better but he was still riding the like the M1 was an R1. He got rolling in the final half hour of the session, adjusting his braking and lines a little. He didn't touch the bike and did the whole session on one set of tyres.

His verdict: "Pretty satisfied to be only 0.5sec too slow to be in the mix,' and "not so far behind James Toseland." Ah, so he is taking notice of the man with whom he is doing a job swap. He had encouragement from Kevin Schwantz and Mick Doohan. Ben was pretty stoked to be told by Mighty Mick that he was doing a good job. Valentino Rossi thought he was alright, too: "It's just a question of time.' Although he did say that the biggest problem Ben will have to deal with is the change to Bridgestones which are so different from anything else he will have encountered.

Meanwhile, the four aliens are at it again at the top of the timing sheets, but everyone is looking hard at Dani Pedrosa who has only won one race this year. He's been all over the Spanish media saying how he has to win here because he can't go through the season with just a solo win. (And he has won two races for the past three years since he came up to the MotoGP class). Casey Stoner, who won here last year off pole position setting a lap record on the way, is fastest. Rossi has won here twice, but not since 2004, and Lorenzo, who's never won here in any class, prefers to talk about securing second in the championship.

Hmm, it's like I said yesterday, the news story this weekend is Ben Spies.