The Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team riders Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith faced the second day of action at the 2016 season opener today and rode at full speed as they both pushed all the way to the end of FP3.

Pol Espargaro kicked off the day by conducting further adjustments to his Yamaha YZR-M1 MotoGP bike and concluded free practice two in 10th overall. Then, later today, the young Spaniard confidently leapt into action when FP3 began as he was determined to pass directly through to QP2. After a relentless effort, Espargaro’s fastest lap left him just over six tenths from third position and the 25 year old will now seek to follow up his positive form by clinching a solid qualifying position tomorrow.

On the other side of the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team pit box, Bradley Smith gave his all throughout the day as he continued the tireless work in preparation for the 22 lap sprint on Sunday. The young Briton commenced the third free practice fully focused and when the chequered flag fell, his fastest time was only 0.029 back from his teammate. Nevertheless, Smith confidently awaits qualifying one tomorrow with the aim to join his teammate in the all important final qualifying session.

Pol Espargaro - Position : 10th Time : 1'55.476 Laps : 19 

"It goes without saying that I'm pleased with the final result as I'm straight through to QP2, which is especially important when considering how things went today. During the first session, it took us a bit of time to get up to speed, mainly due to the fact that we were using the compound that I liked less than the other because we wanted to keep as many of those tyres as possible for FP3 and the upcoming days. However, in the end, I decided to not stop during the final stages of FP3 because for some reason, I'm faster on used Michelin tyres than new ones. This is a completely new situation for me as it was the opposite with Bridgestone where I was able to post one fast lap, but then I usually struggled at the end of the races. Therefore, today, I continued to ride until I ran the lap time I wanted, but at that point there were just four minutes until to the chequered flag fell and I had to come back to the garage. I couldn't continue any longer because there was the risk that I would run out of fueI as didn't stop before, which I was supposed to do. Yet, altogether we can be satisfied because we were able to post our time with an old tyre and after a lot of laps, but still we need to improve in FP4 tomorrow as everybody is really close together so we need to make some steps forward."

Bradley Smith - Position : 12th Time : 1'55.505 Laps : 20 

"Of course, I would have preferred to finish today inside the top ten, but the team did a good job and we are confident for tomorrow. To be honest, we struggled a bit in FP2, but then we made some changes and slowly in the third practice I started to feel more comfortable. In the first part of that session, I did a long run with the hard tyre and then switched over to the soft compound, and immediately I was quick. However, I unfortunately made a small mistake during braking into turn six which caused me to fall and it meant that I had to use my second bike with only nine minutes remaining. I actually felt a bit better on it, but we still need to improve and make some modifications in order to get the best out of the Yamaha in the fast corners, especially in sectors 3 and 4. This will be our aim for FP4 and we will try to gain a bit in those areas. I will have to go through QP1 so I need to focus on riding a strong lap there to be able to progress to qualifying 2 tomorrow.”