Yamaha's star World Superbike rookie Ben Spies has said the first race at Phillip Island was rubbish after clashing with Max Biaggi and Ruben Xaus in two separate incidents but congratulated Noriyuki Haga on a great win.

After being nerfed off twice, the Texan then went on to win race two and poured more praise on the Xerox Ducati man, saying Haga is an excellent rider to race against, even with his individual lines.

"The first race was pretty rubbish for me, but I knew I could come back in race two and fight it out. Unfortunately the incident with Biaggi and Haslam left me no option and forced me off, a double blow to be forced off again shortly after with the Xaus incident," said the reigning AMA Superbike Champion.

"I almost made it into the points and had the pace to do it. Congratulations to Nori for that one. The second race was really tough, I had a couple of attempts to break the lead, and watched Nori as much as possible to see where the opportunities were, we were both keeping the pace really high.

"I tried to stay as close as possible to him and waited for his grip levels to come down. With four laps to go I felt it was the right moment so I put my head down and charged and just kept going! The Pirelli tires were really good and as it was the first weekend for the new R1 it was really great.

"We got it done in the end, it was a really clean race and Nori was excellent to race against. There are a few more of these to go so looking forward to the next one in Qatar.”