Monster Yamaha Tech3 riders Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro continued their relentless work today at the Losail Circuit, Qatar, on the second day of the last pre-season test. Both riders completed a vast quantity of laps in their preparation for the season’s opening MotoGP race on the 23rd of March.
The weather conditions were once again perfect. The track’s grip levels were not ideal at the beginning of the day and were initially worse than yesterday, but as the day progressed, the traction improved. The Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team and Bradley Smith continued to experiment with slight changes to the geometry of his Yamaha YZR-M1 MotoGP bike. The young British rider’s tireless work over the previous tests at Sepang has brought him a setup which he is content and confident with. The Monster Yamaha Tech3 rider was pleased with the bikes performance on used tyres and therefore with the race set up and will now aim to work on the qualifying setup .Today, Smith completed 62 laps and finished the session in 4th place, with a best time of 1:55.627.
Reigning Moto2 World Champion, Pol Espargaro completed another focused day of testing at the Losail circuit as his confidence continues to grow. The young Spaniard undertook a race simulation today to prepare him for the start of his inaugural and forthcoming, MotoGP season. This simulation was the first one he had completed, which included the warm up lap, start and full distance in order to analyse fuel consumption and to also assess his physical condition. He amassed a monumental 66 laps in total, today at the Losail Circuit, more than any other MotoGP rider. Espargaro completed the session in 5th place, with a best time of 1:55.876.
Bradley Smith – 1:55.627 – 4th:
“Today we worked mainly on the rear end of the bike, and just tried to improve on the overall best lap which we definitely found a direction with. I am quite excited for tomorrow as we have several ideas which we will run through, and I still believe there is more that we can improve with race pace, even though it is already really good. If we can start to do some mid and low 55’s, that would be great and is really where we expect to be. We found that we wanted to continue and improve on the new tyres as well as the old ones and I am happy with how the bike performs on either tyre at this stage, so that is really positive for the race. We’ll then work a bit on the qualifying setup and then finally a race simulation“.
Pol Espargaro - 1:55.876 – 5th:
“I’m pleased that I got my first ever MotoGP race simulation under my belt today, even if I was a little bit tired at the end of the run, but I am satisfied with performance of the bike. Of course we still have a margin to improve. It was tricky to ride with the used tyre, and we are still working towards this. When the grip fades slightly, it becomes a bit harder especially with the traction control, so I must learn how to deal with it, but I suppose it’s all about experience. Moreover it is always different to do a race distance without any pressure and no riders in front or behind me. That makes it really hard to keep the concentration, but we did it so and it gives us a good reference point also regarding the fuel consumption. We have to keep an eye on this, and that makes me happy for today. For tomorrow there are still things to test. For example, I want to try and push for a fast lap, which we haven’t done yet. We tried this at the beginning of the session, but due to the conditions we could not improve as much as we wanted but it wasn’t the main aim of today.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Press Release
