I'm guessing 6th. He will have a stronger motor than many, although apparently Edwards has a fresh motor for this race too, so there may be others.

12th

Are there pictures of jean shorts, bad tattoos, and pink pit bikes involved in casting an answer?

5th

I love these thread. It's impossible to tell before practice starts. The top three or four is easy but it gets cloudy after that. Dovi is the real dark horse. Does he feel like racing or not? So if Dovi on the factory Honda is 5th and some Spanish rider grows a pair for a home round Spies could be as low as 12th and as high as 5th.

8th is reasonable but since he's a PIMP I'll give him 4th

mmm Rachel Hacking.

Azrifel - 03 November 2009 02:20 PM

12th

Wow ,but I foregot you are one of those 2stroke lovers ,so that does not surprise me . I doubt if even 12 riders will finish the race since former 250 riders tend to crash alot . I will say Spies will be battling with Hayden ,and Edwards for a top 5 finish ,but might try to help Edwards finsh 5th in the Championship if possible ,so he might let Edwards finish ahead of him .

Spies in Soup (http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2009/Nov/091102-11.htm):

"Basically (in recent history) every World Superbike rider has failed in MotoGP," Spies says, acknowledging Troy Bayliss' legendary win in 2003 as a high point. "We can either be like all the other ones or we can succeed. I still say "succeeding" for me in MotoGP would be a top ten finish right now, or running at the front, not even winning. People think I am full of it when I say that, but I've raced against those guys. I know how fast they are and I know that they have had a lot of time to learn to ride those bikes the way they need to be ridden."

...so, I say top ten. He demonstrated in Portimao that he knows how to attain a goal.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say 5th, and battling with Dani at the end.

I will also say 5th but 6th is probably more realistic. After all this is his first ride on this bike and it's not your everyday machine to get to grips with. Next year he should finish top 4 regularly.

I'll say top 5. I think he'll adapt to the Yamaha quicker than we expect. Either way, he'll ride a smart race and set his benchmark for next season. He did pretty well on the Suzuki for someone with very limited seat time and the Yamaha is head and shoulders above that thing. Looking forward to it.