Bradley Smith is determined to challenge for a place on the podium in tomorrow's Indianapolis Grand Prix after qualifying a superb fourth on Saturday. The Briton worked hard to find a clear space on the track to set his lap time and it paid dividends in the final minute.
Smith has had a difficult summer with an unfortunate run of races leaving him without a point since Mugello, but the Tech 3 rider is back in a positive frame of mind and ready to recapture the form that took him to three consecutive podiums.
“The target was to be on the second row at least and we’ve achieved that, so I’m really happy. With the new surface not offering a great deal of grip, there is only a narrow racing line and if you stray off that it can get very slippery. So it was important to be at the front and not too far down the grid where you’ll need to make a few overtakes. Overtaking won’t be easy at all if you have to go off line and I think everyone is going to struggle with the tyre life because with the new surface everything seems to be ripping up.”
“The Tech 3 Racing Team has been working perfectly again and in every session we have been competitive. Now the objective is to focus on a good start tomorrow and fight for the podium. The last two races haven’t turned out how we expected, so I am extra motivated and determined to get a good result tomorrow.”
Teammate Mike Di Meglio didn't fare as well after a lack of front grip caused him to crash during the session. The Frenchman is refusing to give up though and remains focused on scoring points tomorrow.
“The weekend started quite good, but after we changed some settings for the qualifying it did not work out and that is very strange and I am disappointed, so we have to look into the problem again tomorrow morning. It has been a very difficult weekend and even though I managed to improve my time a lot, we had a lot of trouble with the front tyre. I crashed because we needed to change the tyre already after 10 laps. I hope we can find a solution for the wear problem otherwise it is going to be a very difficult race. I cannot push at the limit, as it is quite dangerous and very difficult. I am tired of being around 24th position all of the time, so hopefully I can battle hard and get into the points.”
