Bradley Smith continued his testing assault at the Sepang International circuit on day two by producing another encouraging performance to close the session in seventh position. The young British rider completed 50 laps around the famous Malaysian circuit and clocked his best time of 2’00.329 on the 49^th lap at the end of the day. His performance highlighted a significant cut of nine tenths of a second from yesterday and saw him notably only 0.231 back from third position. Headway was made today after some constructive work by the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team with the English rider who will seek to maintain the positive momentum tomorrow as he grows more confident with the 2015 specification Yamaha YZR-M1 on every run.

Meanwhile, Pol Espargaro continued the vigorous testing of his Yamaha 2015 YZR-M1 today as he undertook 44 laps in the searing heat at the Sepang circuit. The 2013 Moto2 World Champion posted a best time of 2’00.689 on his 8th lap at the dawn of the test session, before eventually finishing in 10^th position. Nevertheless, the Spaniard made steps forward and his time was quicker than yesterday’s best by almost two tenths of a second as he upholds his positive pre season form. Tomorrow, he will be back on track where he will proceed with his testing programme and seek to close the gap to the leader in lap times.

"Today was a really positive day for me and the team. We began by doing a race simulation in the morning which was our main objective, in order to collect data and feedback. In addition, it was also so that I could understand the new 2015 Yamaha better and see how it handles during a race simulation with full fuel load or used tyres. The race run was very positive and I was able to stay consistently strong during the 20 laps, which indicates the team have done a good job and I have also with my training during the winter months. This afternoon I was able to improve the lap time and it was the closest that I have been to the front so far as I was just behind Valentino and 0.3 from Jorge, which is pleasing. Tomorrow we just need to continue with the testing programme and improving the bike. We are already doing a great job and are 95% there."

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"Today was a tricky day for us, but I still remain positive and am ready to bounce back tomorrow. We actually began the day well and I put in a fast time quite close to the beginning of the session on the 8th lap. However, then we lost some time as we were trying some new settings and we couldn’t find the grip level that I needed to go faster in order to cut the gap to the leaders. Then at the beginning of the afternoon, I had a crash which really didn’t help matters at all and we lost valuable time because of it. Despite it being a challenging day, I am upbeat and we will keep the positive feeling from yesterday plus, use the data we collected today to close tomorrow on a high."

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