Works Yamaha's Ben Spies bruised his back in a bike-mangling, turn-one crash at Silverstone but walked away with nothing worse than a bruised back and badly busted up body armour.

The Texan lobbed it at turn one, the same place as team-mate Jorge Lorenzo and Marco Simoncelli, but seems to have come off worse. He had been sitting pretty in third but must have hit the same standing water that did for Simoncelli and he lost the front.

“I’m so disappointed to finish like this after we worked so hard to be ready for the race. It’s been a challenging weekend for all the guys with the different weather changes but we were ready to race with a really good package," said Spies.

"The track was really wet, when I hit the brakes going into turn one the front just dropped away and I hit the wall before I knew it. I hit my back pretty badly, my back protector is really busted up, but it did its job. I’m really sore and will probably need a big cushion for a few days but I’m happy it wasn’t worse. We’ll take a few days to relax and recover then come back fighting at Assen.”