Smith takes step forward with bike understanding

Bradley Smith has said that he’s changed his understanding of his Tech3 MotoGP machine over the past few rounds, and that his new ability to work out where he’s weaker means he’s starting the weekend a step ahead of where he was previously.

The Brit, who finished today’s second session in eighth, less than 0.3 seconds off teammate Cal Crutchlow, says that he thinks that now like he understands the feel of his machine, and that it should stand him in good stead for the rest of the season.

“What’s been good today is that I knew the corners I was bad at, and the data corresponded without me having to look at it” Smith said after today’s two practice sessions. “It means I’m starting to understand the machine now, which is good for development into the future. I know where I’m weak and struggling, and can pinpoint to the guys where I have problems.”

“It means that we’re now starting every weekend on a higher level – we don’t start trying to figure everything out from the first session; now we can learn the track in the first session, figure out a setting in the second. We’re a full day ahead now.”

However, the 22 year old still has set-up issues to be sorted before qualifying tomorrow, admitting that he’s struggling with three corners in particular at his home round.

“There’s some corners on the track we’re still struggling for front confidence at, but luckily they’re all similar corners – high speed turns where you’re not closing off the throttle, and if we fix one we’ll fix all of them. The front goes quite light, and doesn’t give me a whole load of confidence, but I’m confident we’ll sort it.”

He was also keen to stress that although his weekend so far has gone better than expected, he doesn’t yet expect to be running with the leading pack.

“If I could get my best result of the season at my home race, that would be good, but the main objective right now is to finish a race with the newfound performance we have, then take a full race distance forwards and see where we lie from there. This isn’t really the weekend to be pushing for results, but I’m sure when I close the visor on race day it’ll be a different story.”