Bradley digs deep for 10th in intense Q2

Posted on Sep 26, 2015 by Monster Yamaha Tech 3

Bradley Smith dug deep and fought relentlessly throughout the intense Q2 session and he will line up at the front of the fourth row for the MotoGP race tomorrow. The young Briton kicked off the day by finishing the third free practice in 11th place due to a crash interrupting his session. Yet, his strong lap time of 1’48.318 in FP2 yesterday positioned him in 7th in the overall standings and able to glide straight through to Qualifying 2. As the 15 minute battle got underway Smith leapt into action and looked to land a top starting position to begin the 23 lap fight from. The 24 year old bolted to a best time of 1’47.830 which left him just over three tenths from rear of the second row. This result was a full second quicker than his qualifying time from last year and Smith will seek to undertake a rocket start tomorrow as he hopes to clinch the leading satellite honours at the meandering MotorLand Aragon circuit.

Bradley Smith: – Position: 10th – Time: 1'47.830 – Laps: 8
“Although my grid position is a little further back from where I have been qualifying recently, the weekend has been going well and I am quite positive about getting into the top six tomorrow in the race. I felt comfortable as soon as we got running here, even though I had a little fall this morning. To be honest, we still don’t know exactly what happened, but one possible reason is that the tyres weren’t up to temperature yet. Anyway, in Q2 I expected to do a 47.8 or a 47.9 lap time and I was actually able to do this time for three laps consistently which bodes well for the race. However, today we were missing that last 0.4 of a second, which would have resulted in me scoring a strong qualifying position. We need to analyse a few more details tomorrow in the warm up and then finalise our plan for the race. We will then go from there and hopefully I will be able to get in the mix after a good start.”