You don't think he has what it takes to win a championship. How about a race? Do you think he has what it takes to win a race? He just beat all the aliens except Pedrosa, on an inferior machine. He won pole. He almost won pole last round. He's just getting warmed up.

I'm not late to this bandwagon. I've been following him since his early years. I was there at the podium at Barber when he won his first championship in FX. When (almost) everybody else was poo pooing how boring AMA was, I was saying they were missing out on two of the best racers in the world epically dueling it out. People said no, that's just AMA... Last year in SBK, some people finally took notice. Mladin predicted Spies would win the SBK championship in his rookie year, and nobody believed him. He was 87 points down to Haga at one point. And Haga was on Bayliss' equipment, not inferior equipment as you previously stated. Spies was on a brand new machine (that's clearly not so dominant without him), new team, new everything.

This year, people were saying that no... Simoncelli was going to destroy Spies. Bautista was going to bury Spies. Barbera would beat Spies. All these rookies from 250GPs with their track knowledge and riding style would shut down the Superbike rider Spies. All the regulars were going to send Spies packing back to SBK or AMA Superbikes, where he belongs... like Toseland, or Byrne.

I've said all Spies needed to have a successful rookie season was to place higher than Edwards. Beating Hayden (who I've stated before is a lesser rider than Spies) would just be icing on the cake. He's soundly defeated Edwards so far this year, he's ahead of Hayden in points at the moment, and he's beaten everybody else on the grid at some point. So far in his rookie season, he's only managed to steadily improve. Recently, two podiums, a pole and a second place start. On a satellite team. His main competition isn't Edwards. And it isn't going to be Rossi anymore, or Hayden, or Stoner. It's going to be Dani and Jorge. Make no mistake, Ben is on the ascent. He's a consummate professional racer.