Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team riders Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith experienced a tough first day of practice at the Circuito de Jerez, in southern Spain today for round four of the 2014 MotoGP World Championship.

Bradley Smith’s chances of improving his FP1 time lucklessly ended prematurely due to an enormous crash at turn 11 at the end of the FP2 session, which the British rider fortunately walked away from uninjured.

Smith started the day positively, and aimed to improve his lap time of 1:40.758 set in free practice 1 in the afternoon session, but his time was cut short by the crash. He finished in the combined standings in 11th position overall, but remains hopeful of bouncing back tomorrow and qualifying in the top six, in view to a positive result in Sunday’s 27-lap race.

Rookie Pol Espargaro steered his Yamaha YZR-M1 around the Andalucian circuit to clinch 11th in FP2, and 13th in the combined times today as he continues to progress and gather experience in the premier class.

The reigning Moto2 world champion improved his FP1 lap time by a tenth of a second in the afternoon session, despite having suffered slight traction issues due to the greasy track surface. He aims to qualify competitively tomorrow for race day and then add to his impressive top eight finishes that he has obtained in his rookie MotoGP season so far, in front of his home fans.

Bradley Smith - Position : 11th - Time : 1.40.758

“Today was a tough day, but the most important thing is that I am ok after that huge crash and that I didn’t get any injuries. We didn’t find a good set up with the bike, despite trying many different options and I also struggled a lot with my the rear grip and my confidence with it. I tried the soft and hard compounds of both tyres, and provided Bridgestone with as much information as possible so that we can find a solution. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow, and seriously need to look into our setting. We are not close for the moment, and need to undertake a drastic change to get higher up the grid, but I am still confident that I can qualify well here in Jerez.”

Pol Espargaro - Position : 13th - Time : 1.40.918

“It looks like afternoon was better than this morning’s session in terms of performance, however there is a lot we need to improve on to get up to speed. We just tested the hard rear tyre in the afternoon, and struggled, so it will have to be the tomorrow morning when we try to set the fast lap time, when the track temperature is a bit cooler. I am confident I can get into QP2, however there’s still a lot to improve. We have to discover which settings we need to change on the bike in order to advance. Despite everything, my feeling is a bit better than this morning, so there are some small steps of encouragement but we need to make more.”

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