Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Pol Espargaro produced a resolute effort at the twisting and legendary Mugello circuit to qualify in 10^th position for the 23 lap race tomorrow. The Spaniard got straight up to speed as soon as the morning session began as he continued to alter the set up of his Yamaha YZR-M1, before clinching 5th at the end of FP3 with a best lap of 1’47.175. Once the tightly contested QP2 session commenced, Espargaro leapt into action and began circulating the track at a rapid pace. His best final time was 1’47.050 which was set on his penultimate lap and resulted in him being only 0.180 back from the second row. He will begin round 6 of the 2015 MotoGP World Championship from the head of the fourth row and remains fully intent on seizing a top position to finish the Mugello weekend on a positive note.

On the opposite side of the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team garage, Bradley Smith will begin the 30th MotoGP race at the Mugello circuit, from 11^th on the grid. The 24 year old rider started the day by closing the FP3 session with a lap time of 1’47.495 that left him in 8th position and able to progress straight through to QP2. Here, the British star pushed hard throughout the session before producing a flying lap of 1’47.090 as the chequered flag fell. This saw him finish just a blink of an eye behind his teammate by 0.040 and additionally, he set the fastest top speed of the Yamaha MotoGP bikes which was 344.2 km/h. Tomorrow, Smith intends to continue his notable form so far in the 2015 MotoGP season and his sights are firmly set on scoring a solid result in order to continue his fight for the lead in the satellite bike standings.

"After a qualifying session like today, it's quite difficult to be positive. However, we know that we gave our maximum and we have to be satisfied with the time as well as the performance of the bike. We did the best we can, but all of the times are really tight and there are many riders in front of us who have soft tyres or other advantages, who shouldn’t be our rivals in the race. We were able to improve the issues that I had to face yesterday and the team did a great job in helping me. Our rhythm is quite promising and we are all set for tomorrow’s race. However, to start from the fourth row is not ideal because in MotoGP, it’s very important to begin the race as close to the front as possible. Nevertheless, I made the best lap that I could so I am satisfied that I gave it everything I had, yet it’s frustrating to end up in 10th. We need to do a little bit of work now as we have found something else that we must amend, yet I am confident we can solve this for tomorrow. I am ready to do my best at Mugello and I know that I need a good start and then I have to make up the places that we lost today in qualifying."

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"I am certain that I can score a good result in the race tomorrow, despite making things a bit difficult for myself by qualifying in 11th. With the times being so close, it was tough and I didn’t have a perfect lap around the circuit in QP2. We changed the bike quite a lot in FP4 in order to gain a good setup for the race. Yet, when you make big changes, it’s a bit of a gamble, especially for qualifying so it was difficult to extract the best that I could in such a small amount of time, which is why I am back in 11th. However, I still feel confident for the race as the setup we have now is very consistent. Usually my starts are good so tomorrow, I need to have a strong launch and then fight onwards. There’s a lot of open bikes in front of me but at the end of the day, the race is long so I simply need to try and overtake as many riders as I can throughout the race, be smart at the beginning and we will see where we can go from there."

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