Overheating brakes cost Spies
Ben Spies's ignominious exit from the Japanese MotoGP has been blamed on his Yamaha's brakes overheating.
The American had a strong start to Sunday's race at the Motegi circuit and was up to third place by the end of lap one, hounding his teammate Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.
However, at the start of lap two, Spies speared off the track at Turn One and went across the gravel and into the tyre barrier where he crashed.
"I'm incredibly frustrated with the result," said the 28-year-old.
"We've known all weekend that the brakes could be an issue due to the tough nature of the track but I did not expect to have trouble on the second lap.
"The team has worked really hard all weekend and we've delivered podium pace with the bike so it's not the result we deserve.
"We'll go to Sepang now and try to put this behind us and hopefully have a trouble-free weekend."
Spies's accident has already been examined by his team with Yamaha team director Massimo Meregalli revealing that the American did nothing wrong.
"Ben had an issue with the brakes on the second lap of the race," he said.
"The warm-up lap and lap one of the race went relatively smoothly but then on the second lap he was not able to stop the bike.
"Data does not show anything different on that corner compared with previous practices."
