Pol Espargaro rode to a hard fought 7th place in his home race at the Gran Premi Monster Energy de Catalunya. The young Spaniard undertook a positive start from 10th on the grid to jump up three places by the end of the first lap. With the ever-present threat of rain and thunderstorms looming over the 4727 metre circuit but only spitting marginally towards the end, Espargaro set into a steady and formidable rhythm to maintain this position for the majority of the race distance. On lap 16 Espargaro became locked into a tremendous fight with Andrea Dovizioso aboard the Factory Ducati. Espargaro bravely fought right to the finish line, brilliantly holding off his vastly experienced opponent. The 7th place finish marks the rookies 6th successive top ten finish with his total points tally in the championship increasing to 58, leaving him in 6th and remaining as the leading satellite bike overall during his first season in the premier class with the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team.

Bradley Smith today completed his 25-lap charge around Catalunya in 10th position by battling relentlessly to claw back positions after getting squeezed down the order in the opening lap. Smith began the Grand Prix which is sponsored by Team Tech3's title backers Monster Energy from 8th on the grid but despite a good start, he completed the first lap in 12th. However, the young English rider remained absolutely determined and gave his best by attempting to fight his way back up the field, reaching 10th by lap 15. With the rain still threatening to fall in the latter stages of the Grand Prix, Smith was unfortunately too far adrift to bridge the gap to the rider in front. Yet despite the disappointing end to a GP that saw him top the FP2 practice session on Friday, the 23-year-old British rider collects more vital championship points and heads to the Dutch TT fully confident of a higher scoring result.

Pol Espargaro - Position : 7th - Championship : 6th Points : 58

"We've been struggling a bit during the whole weekend, so to finish today's race in 7th is still an acceptable result. Of course it's a bit disappointing especially after the strong performance of Le Mans and Mugello and I clearly aimed to do better at my home race, but things don't always go according to plan. I'm losing quite a lot of time in the fast corners here, especially in sector 4, as I'm lacking rear grip and I think we will work on this tomorrow at the test by experimenting with different traction control settings. It's an issue we are always experiencing with high temperatures so we clearly have to try to improve it. However, I'm pleased I could fight with Dovizioso down to the line and keeping him behind me. I want to thank the team for the great job this weekend and we will try to challenge to be the best satellite bike again in Assen."


Bradley Smith - Position : 10th Championship : 10th Points : 40

"Unfortunately there's not a lot I can say as I am obviously disappointed with the outcome of today. We had a strong weekend until qualifying as I finished 4th overall in the combined standings and the bike felt really good. But for some reason my feeling of the bike today changed especially at the beginning of the race and I wasn't too confident on it. Yet from the mid section to the end of the race, things slightly improved but unfortunately I was already too far back at this point. Honestly I am frustrated as in the race, my pace wasn't anywhere near the performances I have had during the weekend. It is another missed opportunity but I will bounce back in Assen where hopefully we can have a strong weekend."


Hervé Poncharal - Team manager :

"Whilst there were no words to describe Mugello's MotoGP race, for this race I don't think there are any more superlatives left! From the word go it was an incredible battle and the race could have been anyone's in the top three plus everyone was nervously looking at the sky as the rain was meant to be coming which added some intensity to the fight. In terms of Tech3's riders, Pol had a great start recovering numerous positions straight away. We all thought he would have been able to stay with Aleix, but unfortunately he was just a bit quicker than Pol. On the other hand, Bradley didn't have such a great start which is a real shame as at the end of the race he was lapping quicker than the group of Dovi, Pol and Aleix but unluckily he was already too far behind. Clearly both of our riders could have been up there but that's racing and we still picked up some valuable points for the championship. Now we can just look forward to the next race in Assen where we had a fantastic pole position and 3nd place last year with Cal Crutchlow."

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