Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Pol Espargaro opened his Jerez account with a firm finish of 8th place in the combined practice times on the first day of action at round four of the 2015 MotoGP World Championship in Jerez. The young Spaniard took off at full speed straight away in front of his fans as he lapped the legendary 4.4 kilometre circuit 19 times whilst establishing a setup for the race on Sunday. He closed the opening practice in 5th with a time of 1’39.871 that was only one tenth of a second back from third which left him primed to carry on the encouraging start in the afternoon. Here, the 2014 MotoGP rookie of the year continued his work, yet unfortunately a technical issue halted his run in the second half of free practice 2, which caused him to pull over. Nevertheless, he audaciously sprinted straight back to the pits and jumped on his second bike. He still was able to improve in the session and his time of 1’39.953 was strong enough to clinch 8th. Tomorrow the Spaniard will aim to make the most of the perfect riding conditions in Andalusia and he then will intend to seize a strong qualifying position ahead of the 27 lap race on Sunday.

Meanwhile Britain’s Bradley Smith began the Jerez round of the MotoGP World Championship with a finish of 16th place overall in today’s free practice sessions. Smith completed FP1 in 16th position as he started to refine and adjust the setup of his Yamaha YZR-M1, in preparation for race day on Sunday. In the afternoon, the young British rider pushed onwards as he aimed to cut his time further and set his quickest lap of 1’40.293 on the 17th out of 20. This performance saw him finish the first session in 11th place and three tenths of a second behind his teammate. The 23 year old rider remains fully confident of progressing and undertaking the positive setup work with the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team, in tomorrow morning’s FP3 session ahead of the all important qualifying shootout.

Pol Espargaro - Position : 8th Time : 1'39.871  Laps : 34 

"It was a strong start to the weekend and I’m pleased with our efforts and how the first day went overall. The morning session was really positive and I was happy as we had a good feeling on the bike as soon as the wheels started moving. The lap times came quite easily too as I was comfortable and content with my Yamaha. Yet in the afternoon our plans were disrupted by a technical issue. As a result, we had to change the bike which altered our working plan that we had in place for the session and this especially impacted upon the tyre situation as we didn’t want to use too many new tyres today. So, we didn’t extract the full potential of the session however, we were able to improve the lap time and we remain close to the top riders. It was a good start to the weekend even if I had to sprint back to the pit box after my bike stopped!"

Bradley Smith - Position : 16th Time : 1'40.293  Laps : 40 

"All in all, today has been quite a challenging one for me, yet despite the final position, we managed to gain a lot of valuable information which leaves me positive of improving for the rest of the weekend. The team and I tried the different front and rear tyres as well as a new setting on my second bike.

Although we didn’t discover anything hugely promising with the setup, we definitely have a clear direction to head towards tomorrow in order to have a good qualifying. Of course it will be vital to get into the top ten in the morning so that we can advance to QP2. We still have a lot of work to undertake, but I feel optimistic of a strong race this weekend as we know which areas need to be amended, so we will be ready to do better tomorrow."