Valencia MotoGP: Bradley Smith happy despite late defeat

Bradley Smith signed off a brilliant 2009 with yet another last lap defeat to new world champion and Aspar Aprilia team-mate Julian Simon in Valencia yesterday.

The 18-year-old twice passed Simon on a thrilling final lap but still lost out to suffer a third successive narrow defeat to the Spaniard. 

Following close defeats in Australia and Malaysia, Smith was desperate to clinch a third victory of 2009, but had to settle for his fourth second place in the last six races.

It was his sixth successive podium and came after he’d suffered two big scares.
Firstly his Aspar Aprilia stalled on the warm-up lap and then he nearly crashed when a gust of wind pushed him off line on lap 20 to let Simon into the lead.

Smith was still happy to finish on a positive note and he said: “The fact that myself and Julian did the one-two today is a positive for the team. It has been a fantastic year in which I have enjoyed every moment, especially these last three races with the incredible battles.

“Fighting with Julian has given me a lot of experience. Now I understand much better how the bike behaves, and how I ride during the races. I can take away many positives from the year, and I have learnt so much in terms of tactics.

“Second place is the fastest loser, so we have to think about how to take a step forward next season, but today we at least had a great race. It was difficult to concentrate with the strong wind today, and with four laps to go I was nearly blown from my bike. I tried to get back behind Julian and we had a thrilling final lap duel.”