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Smith Taking Positives From Miserable Afternoon

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Bradley Smith put on a brave face after a tough weekend at Brno came to a disappointing conclusion. The Briton qualified down in 16th but made stunning progress at the start to move up to seventh before it all unravelled on lap two.

Smith was first forced to take avoiding action when Jules Cluzel crashed at turn one, falling back to the position he started, before a second clash with Mika Kallio took him out altogether. The 20 year old was disappointed to see the weekend end in such fashion but was encouraged by the improvements the Tech 3 team made over the course of the weekend.

“Obviously that is not the ideal end to a race and unfortunately that is two races in a row that we haven’t finished. From that point of view it is very disappointing, but we had so many positives this weekend. We struggled with the bike on Friday and a little bit on Saturday, but we were able to find big improvements for the race. I was a bit unlucky. I got a great start and put myself in a great position to fight with the group battling for the top six.”

“I knew I had to pass (Jules) Cluzel early as he had already lost the front group on the first lap. Then he crashed in front of me and I was lucky I stayed on the bike. Then when I was recovering from that incident I got tangled with another rider and I had nowhere to go and I went down. It is not a positive end to the weekend but once again we showed that we have the pace to fight at the front. The Tech 3 Racing Team did a fantastic job this weekend and we learned a lot of new things that will help us for the future and I’m sure we will get the results we deserve soon.”

Mike Di Meglio salvaged a point with 15th place but Team Manager Herve Poncharal was happy to see the back of a disappointing weekend.

“This was another disappointing weekend for the Tech 3 Racing Team. Bradley was very fast this morning in the Warm-up and we were looking forward to him having a strong race to forget the bad luck of Germany. He made an awesome start and recovered a lot of positions and he was immediately close to the top six. Unfortunately again he had a little bit of bad luck. Cluzel crashed in front of him and Bradley told me that it was a miracle that he did not go out with him. He recovered but then there was another incident that he could not avoid and that is disappointing for the whole Team. When you have to push so hard in a class as competitive as Moto2, these things can happen, but we will look to bounce back strongly in Indianapolis and on a positive note he wasn’t injured.”

“Mike had a solid weekend and he looked much stronger than before the summer break. He got only one-point, which is a shame, because his efforts probably deserved more. He was with Takahashi and Kallio and this is positive and I hope today gives him some motivation and a big boost for the next races.”

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MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3 and WorldSBK writer for The Checkered Flag. Contact: [email protected]
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