Strong start for Monster Yamaha Tech3’s Smith at Sepang

Posted on Feb 04, 2014 by Monster Yamaha Tech 3

The Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team kicked off its preparation for the upcoming 2014 MotoGP World Championship at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia today. After over 80 days away from his Yamaha YZF M1’s, Bradley Smith could not wait to get back on the 5,543 km long track which welcomed the MotoGP family with perfect weather conditions.

Today was the first of nine test days in Malaysia and Qatar, before the first race which starts on March 23rd on the floodlit track in Doha, Qatar.

It also marked the first outing this year in the MotoGP class for rookie Pol Espargaro, and the start of a second year campaign for Bradley Smith with the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team.

Bradley Smith, who returns to the Monster Yamaha Tech3 squad for his second year in the MotoGP class, pushed forward from his positive post season test in Valencia last year. The young British rider completed 55 laps on his new 2014 spec Yamaha YZF M1, experimenting with the behaviour of his bike with different electronic settings. Smith finished the first of the three test days in tenth position, with a fastest lap of 2.01,876 min and a gap of less than eight tenths from Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo.

The second session of testing will resume tomorrow at 10.00am (local time - +8 GMT) at the Sepang International circuit.

Bradley Smith – 10th – 2.01.876 min
“First of all it has been a big pleasure to be back on track and I have to admit that especially after the promising result in Valencia the winter season has been really long and I was definitely looking forward to being back on the bike. All in all the day has been positive. Physically I felt much better than last year at this stage, so I'm happy my training seems to have paid off. I also feel very comfortable with the set up of the bike but due to the regulation changes the electronic system is different and we spent the whole day working on it, to make the bike feel a bit more like mine. In generally I'm really happy with how we started today, the majority of my laps were faster than last year as we did a lot of 2.01’s, but we clearly have to improve during the next two days as the gap to Jorge and Valentino is quite big”