Monster Yamaha Tech3’s Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro continued their bright start to the season by improving on the second day of free practice at the floodlit Losail International Circuit, ahead of the qualifying sessions tomorrow.
Bradley Smith furthered his impressive progress during the two 45min sessions at the 5.38 km circuit in Qatar today, with the Monster Yamaha Tech3 rider improving his best time from yesterday’s practice by 0.342 of a second. The young English rider had a breath taking high side crash during the final free practice session, which luckily inflicted no injuries to him. Smith remounted to finish 6th with a best time of 1:55.474 which was expertly quicker than both factory Yamaha riders and will see him progress to the Q2 session tomorrow.
Pol Espargaro continued his solid start as a rookie in the premier MotoGP class by lowering his lap time again today. The 2013 Moto2 World Champion suffered a fall in the second practice session. Fortunately he did not sustain any further injuries, nor aggrivate his shoulder injury any more, and determinedly used his second bike to run his fastest lap times in the third period. His best lap time was a 1:55.793, an improvement of 0.227 from the first practice session which left Espargaro in 11th place and just 0.091 behind Factory Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi. Espargaro’s time will see him enter the QP1 session tomorrow.
Tech3 Communications