Ben Spies can become fifth MotoGP alien

Rookie sensation Ben Spies believes he can become a fifth alien in the MotoGP world championship next year.

The Texan will move to Yamaha’s factory squad in 2011 after a stunning first full season in MotoGP.

The 26-year-old scored his best ever premier class result in Indianapolis last weekend when he claimed a brilliant second, which came just 24 hours after he’d stormed to a career first pole position.

And Spies’ results have raised his confidence and belief that he can pose a threat to Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa next season.

The quartet have been dubbed the aliens in MotoGP having dominated the 800cc era, with all but three races since the beginning of 2007 won by the fantastic four.

Many have tipped Spies to break into the elite group when he moves from the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad to join Jorge Lorenzo in Yamaha’s factory team in 2011.

And the reigning World Superbike champion said: “I think now I can see that it’s attainable. I’m not there yet but it is not impossible. It’s a tough one because these bikes are lot about confidence and when they are working well it is no problem. 

“Look at Valentino when he won the race at Brno last year. He made Lorenzo crash because he was riding so good and when you have these bikes working and you have a head full confidence you can be super-fast.

“When you don’t have confidence you cannot be at the sharp end of the stick pretty easily. So you’ve got to have talent, have the bike working good and have good engineers working on the set-up.”