The Briton recovered well after struggling on the first day due to digestive problems which forced him to only finish nineteenth in the rankings combined for the two Friday sessions.
Bradley was then 1.8 behind the best time achieved by Jorge Lorenzo, but fortunately his health improved and he was able to defend his chances this Saturday. From FP3 in the morning, he progressed magnificently to tenth position on the Ricardo Tormo Circuit. He only finished this third session 0.257 behind his teammate from Tech 3 Espargaro Pol. His return to physical form was confirmed by the fact that he achieved his best time on the nineteenth of his twenty-one laps. He thus brilliantly qualified directly for Q2.
In this qualifying session, Bradley obtained the tenth time, which will allow him to start from the fourth row of the starting grid, alongside Cal Crutchlow et Danilo Petrucci. His stated goal is to obtain the best possible result for his last race at Tech 3, before joining the official KTM team where he will find Pol Espargaro as a teammate.
For Bradley Smith, “ First of all, it was a good result to go straight into Q2 today, because it had been several Grands Prix since I had been able to do so. This afternoon we worked a lot on the race setup in FP4 and we also learned a few other things during qualifying. I'm still not 100% happy with the way the bike rides, but we have confirmed our racing tires which is positive and now we just need to make some small modifications for the 30 lap sprint.
“It will be a long and difficult fight and of course it is vital for the bike to manage the braking well because here it is important to have that balance, especially in the heavy braking zones, and there is at least one in each sector. I'm on the outside of the grid tomorrow, and that's maybe a little better than starting ninth because sometimes you can get stuck on the inside on the first lap. Nevertheless, I will try to get a good start and then enjoy my last race with the Tech3 team.”
