Sterilgarda Yamaha's Ben Spies was forced to ride round a damaged clutch in race two of last weekend's Misano World Superbike meeting and couldn't add to his win in race one.

The American gave a riding masterclass in the opening leg, pitting to change bikes on a drying track and then blowing past Britain's Shane Byrne to take the win. But after a poor start due to the clutch problem, he had to settle for ninth.

“Race one was definitely better than race two! It was good for us, we did what we had to do. I stayed as close as I could to Fabrizio, I couldn’t run Byrne’s pace but wanted to stay with Michel as he was the one who mattered to me in the championship," said Spies.

"I picked the right moment to come in and get out on dry tyres and switch bikes and put in good pace and we managed to win the race. Race two wasn’t so great, I had an issue with the clutch on the start, for the first few laps I was short shifting and trying to ride round it. It finally came better but when I got behind Corser and Kagayama and those guys I couldn’t get round them easily.

"The last seven or eight laps it came good and I tried to run everyone down and started picking them off. I got up to Sykes and Haslam and they were having their little battle, we were definitely faster but I needed another lap to get round them which I didn’t have. It’s frustrating as we’ve lost good points this year and we’d be leading the championship with them. We’ll go to Donington and try to start over again and see what happens.”