Red Bull KTM’s Bradley Smith was staring down the barrel of a points-scoring finish at the half-way point of today’s Silverstone MotoGP but lost confidence with the grip of the hard front Michelin and ended up in 17th place.

Smith started working with a new crew chief at Monday’s Misano test and spent most of Friday working on setup with the hard options tyres but as the track temperature rose, the Oxfordshire rider was left wondering if he should have not gone with the masses and taken a different option.

"I had a great start and was super-aggressive in the opening laps to get myself up the order. Then as the race progressed, maybe the tyre choice wasn't the best but with this temperature being a little higher than before maybe we looked at what the others were doing too much,” said Smith.

“Should we have taken a risk with another tyre? That can then be the recipe for 'hero or zero' so one has to be careful. We've learnt a lot this weekend and felt that we have found some good pace to hold in there until the halfway point but I lost the grip and confidence that I needed to make the front work. Obviously it's heartbreaking to finish a British GP like this but the intent was there from me and all of the boys in the garage but now we focus on Misano where we had a day's testing last Monday."