KTM rider Bradley Smith heads home from the Phillip Island test happy after enjoying another few days of productive track time Down Under.
With Sepang giving the Austrian factory their first runs of the year and a huge amount of parts to test and evaluate, Phillip Island saw some further refinements catapult the ‘Bulls’ up into the 1:29 bracket – as well as providing more track time to carry on their extensive program of testing.
Smith’s best at Phillip Island was a 1:29.978 on Day 3 – just 0.001 off Loris Baz just ahead on the timesheets, and a tenth down on KTM teammate Pol Espargaro.
“It helped us to understand our complete package. As far as the electronics go, it’s important to have a good balance here because of the long corners and the hard drive areas.” He said
“I’m generally pleased with the improvements. On days one and two the lap times were not what I expected, but by the end, I felt a lot more comfortable.”
“I was pleased to do a +1.429 at the end of the session. That was 1.4 off, and about what we would expect.” He added.
“We’ll still work on the electronics, and the drive area because the acceleration phase is so important in MotoGP, and we’re always looking for a bit more.”
