Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Bradley Smith will launch from the head of the fourth row of the grid for the Argentina Grand Prix at the fast flowing Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo. After finishing this morning's free practice 3 in 13th, which saw the British rider qualify for QP1, the 23 year old concentrated on assessing different setup options in FP4 as he completed the session in 12^th position. With the sun shining down on the circuit for the crucial qualifying sessions, Smith shot to the top of the heap with an impressive lap of 1’38.956 during QP1. This time permitted the Briton to progress through to the final 15 minute shootout. Smith powered onwards as he sought a top grid position and set his personal best on the 6th lap with a 1’39.197 which confirmed his starting position of 10^th tomorrow. The young British star remains confident for tomorrow's race where he will intend to once again challenge for the position of the leading satellite bike in the premier class.

Meanwhile, Pol Espargaro endured a tricky qualifying campaign to post a lap time of 1’39.808, leaving him in 18^th position on the grid for tomorrow’s 25 lap dash. The young Spaniard began the day by finishing the FP3 session in 11th place but just 0.014 of a second behind the final Q2 position which meant he had to partake in qualifying 1. Here, the 2014 rookie of the year executed a fully determined effort on the challenging circuit, yet still wasn't able to lower his lap time enough to participate in qualifying session 2. Now, the 23 year old Spaniard looks ahead to tomorrow where he will aim to undertake a strong start and then climb through the field to a top ten position.

"Obviously, it was not ideal to go through QP1 again today, but I managed to post a really good lap time that allowed me to get into qualifying 2. Unfortunately, there was only one compound of my favoured front tyre left which I decided to keep for the race tomorrow and so I had to run with a used one in qualifying 2. As a result, I couldn't push as hard as before but nevertheless, we did an ok job considering that the tyre had already covered a full race distance in the end. Perhaps we could have been a position or two higher, but 10th is acceptable and especially as it has been quite a tricky weekend so far. Now, we will focus even more on the race pace as this is vital in terms of success tomorrow. Having a competitive bike for 25 laps is highly significant as there is a big tyre drop here and therefore, there is potentially a lot of time to gain. So this is what we will focus on tomorrow in the warm up. The team did a great job and I must say thanks to them as they turned my bike around and adjusted it to make me feel more comfortable on this track. We need to continue working a little bit more, but we are starting to find the right direction to head towards. This may be a bit late in the race weekend, but Sunday is where everything matters."

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"It goes without saying that I am far from satisfied with how things went today. We concentrated a lot on our race rhythm and tried both compounds of tyre in the initial two free practice sessions plus we completed many laps with the extra hard one and I’m convinced that my pace is pretty good. It was a pity that we couldn’t go straight through to QP2 and that we missed it by just 0.014 of a second. Also, we were close to the factory bikes who were just three tenths away. Nevertheless, I was still confident as we have known since the beginning of the season that this type of situation could happen during the year as the level is really similar and the manufacturers who are allowed to use the softer tyres have improved their bikes a lot. However, unfortunately the session was a disaster. We need to analyse what exactly happened as when I went out for my second run, which was the one where I planned to do a time attack, I realised that it was impossible to ride fast with the bike like this. To be honest, I do not know what was wrong, but I couldn’t even come close to setting my fastest time of the weekend. To kick off the race from 18th is not good news at all and I will need a lot of patience plus a well thought out plan to make up the positions. It will be difficult for sure but until we started this session, my feelings here were positive. Now I need to be confident that we can turn the weekend around tomorrow."

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