Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Bradley Smith began his campaign at the Gran Premio Motul de la Republica Argentina by taking the first solid steps forward on the opening day of action. After wrapping up the FP1 shakedown in 9th, the British rider continued his push in the afternoon, before setting a lap time that left him just 0.220 from fourth. He now looks on to tomorrow’s all-important qualifying, fully confident of clinching a top tier grid position.

Meanwhile, Pol Espargaro fought the challenging Termas de Rio Hondo circuit as he started setting up his Yamaha YZR-M1 for the 25 lap sprint. After gathering data and building speed, the young Spaniard set off in Free Practice 2, determined to close the day with a solid finish. His final time was eventually less than two tenths of a second from his teammate, yet his hopes of cutting the gap further were thwarted when he fell at the first corner in the final moments of the session. Nevertheless, the 25 year old optimistically awaits the qualifying shootout tomorrow.
 
Bradley Smith - Position : 9th Time : 1'42.595 Laps : 34 

"On the whole, the first day in Argentina has been quite positive. I feel that we made some good progress and now have a solid platform to move forward from. We had to face a lot of different conditions because the temperature and the grip changed considerably, so we needed to be attentive to these. In the morning, the circuit was dirty, so we used the session to clean up the track a bit and also learn how the tyres perform here. Then, in the afternoon it was much hotter and the track surface had warmed up by almost as much as 20 degrees. As a result, we were able to study the medium and hard tyre compounds. In the end, I was pleased with my final run and with being able to undertake a 1’42.5 lap time which meant that I finished inside the top ten. For tomorrow, we need to continue learning and assessing in order to get the hard tyres to work in the optimum way.”

Pol Espargaro - Position : 13th Time : 1'42.774 Laps : 34 

"In all honesty, the day has not been bad as it seems to be, yet for sure, it’s no reference point for the weekend as the times are a long way off last year’s performances. At the moment we are struggling to run 1’42’s and in 2015 the fastest lap in FP1 was 1’40.8. That is a clear indication of how dirty the surface is and all we can do is continue to ride on it in order to improve the grip level. Currently, it’s the Moto2 class on track and tomorrow morning there will be one more Moto3 session, so by the time we go out again, things might have improved. Still it’s a real pity about my two crashes today, we know exactly what went wrong and as soon as you are a little bit off line with these conditions, you can’t save the bike. For tomorrow, I hope that the weather changes slightly because some clouds would definitely help us because at the moment, the track temperature is pretty much the same as during the preseason tests in Sepang."