Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team riders Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith impressed on a record-breaking opening day of practice at the spectacular Phillip Island track in Australia today.

The British pair took full advantage of favourable weather conditions and a smooth new surface offering excellent grip levels to set competitive times at the start of the 16th round of the 2013 MotoGP World Championship.

A strong and unpredictable wind blowing off the nearby Bass Strait didn’t prevent Crutchlow from comfortably lapping under Nicky Hayden’s 2008 lap record of 1.30.059, the 27-year-old setting a personal best pace of 1.29.667 under clear blue skies.

That was good enough to place Crutchlow, who is scheduled to make his 50th MotoGP start in Sunday’s 27-lap race, sixth on the combined timesheets on a day that ended with the top six all under lap record pace.

Just one place below Crutchlow on the rankings was teammate Smith, who made a confident start to his first taste of the jaw-dropping Phillip Island circuit on a 1000cc MotoGP machine.

Smith wasted no time in getting up to speed in this morning’s FP1, with a best lap of 1.30.361 leaving him just 0.231s behind Crutchlow.

The 22-year-old improved his pace to a 1.30.165 in this afternoon’s blustery FP2 session and that secured him seventh on the leaderboard and the third best time set by a non-factory rider.

It wasn’t only the lap record that was smashed today, with Alvaro Bautista setting a new top speed record at Phillip Island with an astonishing speed of 343.9km/h (213.68mph) on the long start/finish straight.

Cal Crutchlow 6th 1.29.667 – 43 laps:

“Today was a good start to the weekend and I am satisfied to be in the top six. I’d like to be stronger on the brakes going into Turn 4, which can be important for overtaking in the race on Sunday. It was obvious that the new track surface is a big improvement and they have done a really good job in making it smooth with a lot of grip. A few of us were consistently under the lap record with a similar pace and hopefully tomorrow I can improve to be a bit higher up. I was on the podium here last year and it was great to share the rostrum with Casey and Jorge. It will be difficult to repeat that on Sunday but I will be trying my maximum as always to get the best result possible for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad.”

Bradley Smith 7th 1.30.165 – 45 laps:

“The first day here in Phillip Island has been better than my Friday performances in recent races and I am happy about that. This morning my feeling with the bike was really good and the new surface gave me a lot of confidence with the Bridgestone tyres and I could push a lot. We tried a couple of things with the bike to find a good direction for tomorrow and we are moving in the right way and that’s good. I don’t really have any problems, so tomorrow we will make a couple of small setting changes and hopefully I will be able to break into the 29s and reduce the gap to Jorge at the front.”

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