Ben Spies hunting more Dutch delight

Ben Spies is determined to fire some momentum into his 2012 MotoGP world championship campaign by challenging for a second successive victory in the legendary Dutch TT at Assen this weekend.

The Texan’s solitary premier class victory came in emphatic fashion at Assen a year ago, but Spies arrives in Holland without a podium in the opening six races of this season.

The former World Superbike champion scored a season best of fifth place at the last race in Silverstone and a disappointing run of results has ramped up the pressure on Spies in Yamaha’s factory squad.

His place alongside Jorge Lorenzo is still up for grabs with Tech 3 duo Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso making their intention to secure a factory YZR-M1 in 2013 no secret.

But Spies said his focus to win Saturday’s clash in Assen for a second year in a row won’t be any different to any other weekend and he told MCN: “I guess the intention will be to try and win again. That’s the goal. I mean that’s the goal for the guy that qualifies in 15th place. That’s why we come to the race.

“I know the start of the year has been bad and we haven’t done what we expected, but every time we start on the grid the goal is to win the race. We’ll go to Assen and try to do the same thing we’ve done at other races and that’s try to win the race. I go to Assen with those intentions.

“I’ll approach it just like any other weekend. With the way the championship is for us it is not so good, so we just have to race every weekend and not worry about anything else.”