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Bright start in sunny Spain for Espargaro - Malcolm - 26-09-2014 Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Pol Espargaro signalled his intent for the weekend by completing the opening day of practice forcefully in 6th place in front of his home crowd at the MotorLand Aragon circuit. The reigning Moto2 World Champion began the day by finishing in 8th position with a best time of 1’50.120 which saw him miss the second row by only 0.178 of a second after running strongly throughout the practice. The 23 year old rider continued his forward momentum into the afternoon as track temperatures increased and powered to a best lap of 1’48.966. This time was just behind the 3rd placed rider by only two tenths of a second and was set on his third lap as he also posted the quickest Yamaha speed of 334.4 kmh. The superb start leaves the young rookie poised for success at Aragon and tomorrow he will aim to qualify inside the top six in front of his passionate fans and then blaze to a competitive result in the 23 lap dash on Sunday. On the other side of the Monster Yamaha Tech3 garage, Bradley Smith worked on establishing a comfortable setup of his Yamaha YZR-M1 before confidently finishing in 9th place in dry, sunny conditions at Aragon. The British rider completed the morning session in 10th after posting a time of 1’50.246, only three tenths of a second from the top six. As the afternoon practice began, the young rider battled onwards in the fiercely competitive premier class to complete the session inside the top ten with a best lap of 1’49.011. In addition, the distance to the 5th placed rider was impressively minimal with a gap of only 0.073 seconds. The work undertaken today together with his performance, leave the 23 year old charged with grit as he optimistically looks towards the qualifying shootout tomorrow at Aragon. Pol Espargaro - Position : 6th - Time : 1'48.966 Laps : 37 "Today was a really positive way to kick of the weekend for me. My feeling with the bike was good from the word go, which could partly be due to the fact that I’ve ridden a lot of races here, but for whatever reason all the movements felt truly natural. I was able to run competitive lap times which kept me on the virtual podium for the majority of the session this afternoon, but still I think Valentino and Jorge's rhythm might be a bit stronger and for sure they will get up to speed tomorrow. Also we still have some margin to improve and I'm looking forward to trying the softer tyre compound in FP3 or 4 as we just ran the harder compound today. I know the situation in qualifying will not be an easy one due to the tyre difference with the Ducati's and the open class bikes but I'm really looking forward to the race on Sunday and I hope that all of our hard work will pay off." Bradley Smith - Position : 9th Time : 1'49.011 Laps : 37 "I am pleased with the job we did today and especially in this afternoon’s session, we made a big step forward with the bike and have a definite direction to follow for the rest of the weekend. We focused a lot on braking stability as well as my technique in order to be smoother and more consistent. I can safely say that we improved this and I certainly feel that we did a good job today. At the moment, the lap times are close in the classifications but the Honda’s seem to have a small advantage so we need to work hard to catch them up. Also today, the soft tyre compound might have given the open class bikes and the Ducati’s some advantage however, I am confident that the grip level of the track will keep improving which will allow us to close in on them tomorrow. Nevertheless it was a positive day and I look forward to continuing the good work for the rest of the weekend." .