Factory Yamaha's Ben Spies is expecting passing at the Indianapolis MotoGP later on today to be a tricky affair as the surface has grip hotspots so getting offline is going to be interesting.

The Texan bagged second place in last night's session but says he simply wasn't quick enough to hang on to pole man Casey Stoner, who has also expressed concerns about passing slower riders.

"We weren't fast enough but pleased to be in the middle of the front row for, especially the way this track is the first five turns on the first lap. So we need to get a good start and don't make any mistakes in the first five or six laps," said Spies.

"It's pretty tricky, especially when you start passing. We don't really know yet what's going to happen yet. But it's been slowly improving, but I think we've kind of hit a plateau on the way the track is going to be. We just have to see what the other riders do and see how the bikes react after 12, 13 laps with the tyres.

"I think the race could be quite a bit different than qualifying. I don't think drastically, but I think it's going to be pretty interesting. So we'll just do the best we can and make the bike a little bit better. We need to find some more speed, but consistency is there, but we need to go a little faster if we want to hang on the back of him."