Braking style tweak boosts Bradley Smith in Aragon

Bradley Smith made a huge riding style breakthrough at the Motorland Aragon track today courtesy of some tough love from his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad in Spain.

The 22-year-old was locked in a long technical meeting with his Tech 3 crew last night where he was told in no uncertain terms that his braking technique has to be improved for him to emerge as a consistent top six challenger in the future.

Being smoother in the braking zone with closing the throttle and downshifting gears paid off immediately though for the British rookie, who was a transformed rider today.

He went from 13th position at the end of Friday practice to finish in a brilliant eighth position in this afternoon’s decisive second 15-minute qualifying session.

His pace was two seconds quicker than yesterday and Smith was only just over one second behind Marc Marquez in pole position and a fraction over 0.2s behind British teammate Cal Crutchlow, who failed to qualify inside the top six for the first time in 2013.

When asked by MCN to explain how he had worked on his braking style, Smith admitted it had been a humbling experience to be told his technique was hurting his progress on the satellite YZR-M1.

Smith said: “A lot got discussed last night with the main thing being my braking style and trying to keep the bike as smooth as possible.

“I still have a terrible habit of popping up from behind the screen but the way that you go down the gears is very important and the way you squeeze the brake is also very important and the Yamaha likes to always be in line.

“If the bike is moving then you are doing it wrong because that bike will go straight as you can see from the other riders. That was one reason why I went out in the damp this morning. I didn’t need to ride fast but I needed to get into my brain the whole sequence of how you brake and how you roll off and use the clutch.

“Each time I went out I improved in that area and I just kept getting faster and faster. It enabled me to carry more corner speed and that is what the Yamaha needs. It was hard to swallow and not nice to be told that you are riding the bike wrong and you are the problem. That is never nice for anybody to hear but it is the truth.

“But with the tweaks that the team made and the tweaks that I made we found two seconds. How much they came from the bike and how much came from me remains to be seen? But without doubt they were right and I did improve today because of them.”

Smith said the crucial aspect to focus on for the future is remaining smooth throughout the braking phase from when he first rolls off the throttle to accelerating.

He added: “I am trying to be as smooth as I can going down the gears and trying to slow everything down.

“I had this terrible habit of snatching up from behind the screen and I was trying to do everything too much in one go and they wanted me to do it nice and slow and almost be relaxed as much as you can, which is not easy when you are doing over 200mph on these bikes.

“But it is a necessity to do it if you want to go faster with this bike. I went faster than Cal and Dovi did with this bike last year, so it was win-win today.”