Smith kicks off round 2 fight positively on day one in Argentina

Posted on Apr 01, 2016 by Monster Yamaha Tech 3

​Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Bradley Smith began his campaign at the Gran Premio Motul de la Republica Argentina by taking the first solid steps forward on the opening day of action. After wrapping up the FP1 shakedown in 9th, the British rider continued his push in the afternoon, before setting a lap time that left him just 0.220 from fourth. He now looks on to tomorrow’s all-important qualifying, fully confident of clinching a top tier grid position.

Bradley Smith: – Position: 9th – Time: 1'42.595 – Laps: 34
"On the whole, the first day in Argentina has been quite positive. I feel that we made some good progress and now have a solid platform to move forward from. We had to face a lot of different conditions because the temperature and the grip changed considerably, so we needed to be attentive to these. In the morning, the circuit was dirty, so we used the session to clean up the track a bit and also learn how the tyres perform here. Then, in the afternoon it was much hotter and the track surface had warmed up by almost as much as 20 degrees. As a result, we were able to study the medium and hard tyre compounds. In the end, I was pleased with my final run and with being able to undertake a 1’42.5 lap time which meant that I finished inside the top ten. For tomorrow, we need to continue learning and assessing in order to get the hard tyres to work in the optimum way.”