impressive start for Smith at Phillip Island

Posted on Oct 18, 2013 by George Penny

Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team riders Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith impressed on a record-breaking opening day of practice at the spectacular Phillip Island track in Australia today.

The British pair took full advantage of favourable weather conditions and a smooth new surface offering excellent grip levels to set competitive times at the start of the 16th round of the 2013 MotoGP World Championship.

Smith wasted no time in getting up to speed in this morning’s FP1, with a best lap of 1.30.361 leaving him just 0.231s behind Crutchlow.

The 22-year-old improved his pace to a 1.30.165 in this afternoon’s blustery FP2 session and that secured him seventh on the leaderboard and the third best time set by a non-factory rider.

It wasn’t only the lap record that was smashed today, with Alvaro Bautista setting a new top speed record at Phillip Island with an astonishing speed of 343.9km/h (213.68mph) on the long start/finish straight.   

Bradley Smith 7th 1.30.165 – 45 laps:
“The first day here in Phillip Island has been better than my Friday performances in recent races and I am happy about that. This morning my feeling with the bike was really good and the new surface gave me a lot of confidence with the Bridgestone tyres and I could push a lot. We tried a couple of things with the bike to find a good direction for tomorrow and we are moving in the right way and that’s good. I don’t really have any problems, so tomorrow we will make a couple of small setting changes and hopefully I will be able to break into the 29s and reduce the gap to Jorge at the front.”