Tech3 Racing Team rider Bradley Smith remains confident he can deliver a valuable points haul in tomorrow's Czech Republic Moto2 round at the Brno circuit.
Smith is optimistic he can continue his impressive rookie campaign in the ultra-competitive Moto2 class, despite qualifying outside of the top 10 for only the fourth time in 10 races earlier today.
After this morning's final practice was run on a drying track after heavy early rain, this afternoon's qualifying session took place on a full dry track, allowing Smith to gain crucial set-up information on his Mistral 610 machine in race trim.
The British rider, who currently si ts fifth in the World Championship rankings, clocked a best time of 2.03.844 to finish less than 0.5s away from the top six. The 20-year-old has demonstrated several times this season an amazing overtaking ability and he's confident he can mount a top 10 challenge in tomorrow's 20-lap encounter.
Bradley Smith 16th 2.03.844 – 17 laps:
"Obviously today was a little bit of a struggle. I am really happy with my performance and I don't believe I could have done a better lap time, but we need to find something for tomorrow. It looks like in the group that we want to fight with we need to find 0.4s a lap. I don't think we have the pace to fight for the podium tomorrow, so we have to be realistic and do damage limitation for the World Championship. We need to try and find the time from somewhere, but unless there is a miracle I don't think that is going to happen. We found 0.7s from yesterday so we can find big chunks of time and we will continue to push hard and work on the rear grip for tomorrow. We need to find a little bit better balance so we can be faster in the corners.”
