Lack of support for Tech3 riles Smith

The MotoGP world champion will ride a Yamaha in 2015 but speaking in Sepang Bradley Smith felt that the support being offered to Tech3 has left the French team forced to find solutions rather than get assistance from active support by the factory.

After enduring his most difficult weekend of the season in Phillip Island the British rider said that despite riding to his limit he was unable to find a solution for grip problems that besieged him throughout the Australian round. Having analysed his performance with his data engineer Smith assessed his outing and said:

“I wanted to learn from Phillip Island and I studied everything that I can do as a rider,” commented the Englishman. “When we looked at the data I was picking it up earlier than Jorge and Valentino, I had it more upright, was smoother with the throttle but was still spinning much worse than they were. It turned out that on Sunday they ran a completely different setting and didn’t pass the information on to us. Obviously that makes me quite disgruntled because if we’re all in it together and allowed to see data why wasn’t that information passed down?”

The changes made to the Factory machines were made on Sunday morning during warmup and having struggled with a lack of grip Smith felt that they should have offered his team some guidance to improve his bike. With an improvement in drive grip Smith felt that he had the chance to fight with Maverick Vinales and Cal Cruthclow for a top six finish rather than settle for a top ten.

Smith went on to say that it wasn’t the first time that the Tech3 team had been left in the dark this year and that between him and his teammate, Pol Espargaro, the team has to find solutions rather than be offered assistance from the factory.

“Unfortunately it’s almost as if you have to learn it for yourself. Naaturally, there’s not the same level of support compared to the factory team and unless we learn it ourselves we won’t find it. So we have to go digging for it and find a solution or the information doesn’t come.

“It’s frustrating because we’re supposed to be under the same umbrella and I know for sure that Tech3 has helped the factory team when they’ve been in a difficult situations by having meetings and giving them support. It’s frustrating when the support doesn’t go both ways but it’s the same for Pol so there’s no favouritism within our team, it’s just a case of not supporting a satellite team.”