Britain’s Bradley Smith continues to struggle in the early laps of MotoGP and believes that a full fuel load is part of the problem but doesn’t yet have a definitive direction in which to point his technicians.

The youngster, who has no problem setting fast times on a low fuel load in practice and qualifying, had to wait for his Monster Yamaha to come to him in yesterday’s Argentine round by which time the front men had left the building. It is the same issue suffered by former team-mate Cal Crutchlow when he switched to an updated fuel tank on the M1 last year.

“It was a points-gaining experience for me. We struggled a lot at the beginning of the race and I had a lot of moments where I could have crashed, so it was a good job to stay calm and wait for my bike to improve,” said Smith, speaking in Argentina.

“We’re not happy with the way the bike is reacting at the moment at the beginning of the race. It’s been the same story for the first three races so we just need to improve in that area and focus on Jerez.

“I know we will have two or three options to try during next weekend and I am sure we can come up with a solution. I think the full fuel load has something to do with it. In qualifying I had a good performance but that’s with low fuel load and new tyres so we need to look into every situation and why we are losing the time.”