Confident start on the opening day at Valencia for Smith

Posted on Nov 07, 2014 by Monster Yamaha Tech 3

Bradley Smith closed the opening day of action at the Gran Premio Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana with a 10th place finish in the combined standings. Smith completed the morning session with a firm ride to 6th where he posted a best time of 1’32.019.

Free practice 2 saw the young British rider power onwards before concluding the practice with a 1’32.024 as he explored setup options in preparation for the 30 lap sprint on Sunday. The result today sees him poised to improve his time further as well as leaving him charged with determination for the qualifying practice tomorrow where he will aim for a position on the front two rows of the grid.

Bradley Smith: – Position: 10th – Time: 1'32.019 – Laps: 42
"The opening day of practice in Valencia went quite well for me and there are plenty of positives to take. We tried a lot of different options, particularly in the afternoon practice session as we had already established a solid base setup in the morning which I completed in 6th. It was a strong start and so we continued to explore different options in FP2 as we aimed to improve further. We have a good understanding of what we need to do to reduce the lap times tomorrow and we certainly found a good direction. The Yamaha is running very well here and is really consistent which I am pleased with. In addition, I rode my lap time on used tyres that had run almost race distance. Overall, I am feeling optimistic at the moment and we will continue our work to close the gap even more to the top six."