MotoGP: Smith plays it smart for best KTM result

Bradley Smith has admitted that Sunday’s San Marino Grand Prix was a case of playing it smart to stay on the bike and make a good result in terrible conditions, as he beat teammate Pol Espargaró and took his best result so far on the Red Bull KTM machine in tenth.

And, with rumours continuing to circulate about his future role at the Austrian manufacturer, the result couldn’t have come at a better time for him – something he admitted after the race.

“I think the biggest thing today was that if you stay upright you’ll get some points, so I tried to play it smart right from the word go. At the start there was so much spray you couldn’t see much, plus there was so much standing water but then I felt better and better as the track started to dry and then from mid race I found myself chasing Folger and then Pol so we then had our own little battle and in the final laps.

“I dropped into the 1m 48 bracket, which was great, to then bring it home for tenth in the end, my first top ten finish. I’m super happy to put it together on a Sunday and although it is a wet race, we now need to put this together in the remaining dry races, but certainly things are going in the right direction. A good day.”

And despite being beaten by his teammate, Espargaró also admitted after the race that given the conditions he too was happy with how it had went for him.

“I think I’ve tried everything today! Out on track the conditions were similar to the warm up, but this track doesn’t give much grip on the rear wheel when it’s wet. In the dry we were not far away at all but with only 20 minutes this morning in the wet we hardly had much data going into a 28 lap race. I ended up doing everything I could during the race…nothing more! Luckily we have tomorrow to test new things for Aragon and hopefully in the next wet race I can do a little bit better.”