Smith Top Satellite Rider With Sixth At Sachsenring

Bradley Smith left the 2014 German Grand Prix with his career in MotoGP very much in doubt having endured a nightmare weekend that saw him crash out of the race, his fifth crash of the weekend!

But the Tech 3 rider has more than proven himself this year as top satellite runner and a worthy podium contender when the situation arises. The Briton had another strong weekend to finish as top satellite rider in 6th and now sits equal 5th with the Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso in the championship standings on 87 points.

Smith's race wasn't without incident however. By the closing stages of the 30-lap race Bradley had worn away the knee slider on his left knee which meant he couldn't fully lean into corners.

“I am pleased with today's performance, especially as it was a tricky race where I had to give it 100% but also remain smooth which is what you need to with the Yamaha. We are top satellite bike again and at the end of the 30 lap race, we had a strong advantage over both Cal and my team-mate which is really positive. At the same time, I can't help but be a little bit disappointed as I had a similar pace to Iannone but I wasn't able to catch him because I lost a lot of time with Hernandez in the beginning of the race. It's my own fault as I qualified 9th so this is an area I need to improve in the second half of the season because I know we can fight inside the top five.”

“In addition, I couldn't put my left leg down at the end of the race as I had completely worn down my knee slider, which was a bit scary around here as there are so many left turns. Nevertheless, we are joint 5th in the championship and it's been a great first half of the year.”

Bradley won't get much of a rest during the summer break as he'll be contesting the Suzuka 8-hour endurance race at the end of July with the factory Yamaha outfit aboard a YZF-R1M alongside Tech 3 team-mate Pol Espargaro.

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