Bradley Smith’s Monster Yamaha team-mate Pol Espargaro believes that experience and track time in MotoGP is the best route to a podium finish this season.

The young Spaniard, who started at Qatar with a broken collarbone, was drafted into the squad by Yamaha Japan - which forced out Cal Crutchlow - says he needs to understand his YZR-M1 a lot more before starting to push hard.

It's important to understand the bike as fast as possible, because for sure the test is important, and it's so important to understand. But once you reach a certain level, you need the races. You need one race, not to just race, but to understand,” said Espargaro, talking to our friends at Motomatters.com

“When you are racing, you are fighting with other riders and you are learning a lot, a lot more than on a normal day, a normal practice. Because in a normal practice, maybe you find some riders somewhere on the track, but it's not the same. You see the rider, you see the style, you see the good line. So actually we need to test, but I think we need more to race and make some races to understand the bike 100%.

It's a difficult class. But I have to be so grateful to Yamaha, because they give to me an amazing bike. So for sure I have to say thanks, because if you don't have a good bike, it's difficult to make a good result. For sure, the full official riders are so fast, are amazing, but the bike, too, makes a little bit of the difference to the others.

“So for sure we have a good bike, we have a good team, I have everything to be on top and to fight with them, but still I need experience. This category needs experience, need to understand the traction control, needs to understand the anti-wheelie and all the electronics systems, and so it takes time, but for sure I have to be so happy because I am on a good team.”

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