Confidence growing for Smith

Bradley Smith’s transition to the Moto2 class has been impressive, the young Brit scoring a ninth-placed finish on his race debut in Qatar and then taking fourth in the wet at Jerez in Round 2.

Smith shot into the lead on lap one at Jerez from the second row of the grid, and eventually finished the race just over 15 seconds off winner Andrea Iannone as he dealt with the difficult conditions admirably.

“I thought ninth was a great result in Qatar, so fourth just feels fantastic and I want to thank my Tech 3 Racing Team and my crew chief Tom Jojic because the bike was working brilliantly in really difficult conditions,” said Smith as he analysed his second race in Moto2. “The step we made with the set-up in the wet conditions from the warm up was huge and I felt much more confident in the race.”

“In those conditions you need to concentrate so hard that the race feels like a lifetime but I just decided to attack from the start. I was a bit shocked to lead but I felt comfortable because it's not the first time I've been at the front of a Grand Prix. I realised pretty quickly I didn't have the pace to match Lüthi and Iannone when they came by but that's down to my inexperience and a bit of confidence to push like they were in the rain. If I could run the race again though I'm sure I could have stayed with Corsi and battled closer for the podium.”

Next up is Estoril, a track at which Smith finished on the podium for the past two seasons in the 125 class.

“Fourth is an amazing result when you consider how tough this class is and how difficult the conditions were,” he added. “I've still got a lot to learn to be fighting closer for the podium but I'll take this fourth with both hands and look forward to the next race in Estoril with a lot of confidence and optimism.”