Spies: It came pretty easily

Ben Spies has expressed confidence that he will have the race package to back up his strong pace over a single lap after claiming provisional pole position for the latest World Superbike round at Assen.

Belying his inexperience of the iconic Dutch circuit, Spies took just an hour to stamp his mark on proceedings by claiming the quickest time in the opening free practice session.

Spies would go on to repeat the feat in provisional qualifying, the American's time of 1min 38.747secs proving some three tenths quicker than closest competitor Jakub Smrz.

Looking for his fourth consecutive pole position in Superpole, Spies and Yamaha also took the time to concentrate on race set-up in a bid to overturn the advantage Ducati enjoyed last time out in Valencia.

"It was a good session, we did half a race stint at the beginning on race tyres that already had ten laps on from free practice and were only a few tenths off the fastest time from the race last year over race distance so I was really happy.

"We then put some fresh race tyres on and the times just dropped dramatically and it seemed to come pretty easily. The bike's working really well, there are a couple of things we still need to dial in but the track's great and I'm having fun with it."