Factory Yamaha's Ben Spies was rewarded with a third non-finish in a row at Brno yesterday when his clutch fried off the line and he adopted a 'rostrum or hospital' approach to the remainder of the action.

The Texan's clutch problem saw him drop back to 14th place and a subsequent charge back when it has cooled ended up with a lowside into the gravel, adding a third non-finish to his Laguna Seca and Indianapolis events.

"The initial part of the start was really good but then as soon as we clicked second gear, obviously I saw and felt the bike go straight to the rev limiter. I knew what had happened then, so going through turn one, I actually went up a gear and tried to be as easy as I could with the clutch. On the middle straight I kinda pulled over a little bit, to stay up as far as I could, but I also knew what was going to happen, and every time I shifted, it was going to the limiter," said Spies, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

"I was trying to keep it out of slipping the clutch, and I went as slow as I could through the next couple of corners and was hoping it would cool down and I would not lose too many positions, but then when I came out of turns four and five and six it was just immediate.

"When it would start building power it would just spin the clutch, so I just had to slow down. Usually when this happens, it takes a lap or so, but on the data it was pretty clear that you know even taking it easy, it took two and a half laps to come back. And when it did I got as clear of a head as I could and started trying to push and even coming through the people our lap times were OK, and I got to clear track and we were going pretty quick.

"I could see the group ahead of me and I just had it in my mind that we had to make up all that ground. It was basically top five or not going to make it. And it really didn't feel like I was pushing that much at the limit, and I just had a simple lowside. It wasn't a big crash, I didn't have any injuries. Just really gutted for the team, because even with all the bad luck from Laguna and Indy, we show up this weekend and I think it was pretty clear that we were giving everything we had through warm up and qualifying and practice, but as the race started it was over at turn one."