Britain’s Bradley Smith is hoping for a dry MotoGP race in Austin on Sunday as he believes that his Monster Yamaha M1 is only capable of a good result if the rain holds off.

Smith suffered a crash into turn one yesterday after staying out too long on the bike he had setup for wet conditions. If it rains, Smith believes the works and Pramac Ducatis will be very tough to beat even though he was reasonably quick as it thundered down.

In the rain we were quite quick, I was happy with it considering that this time last year, every time I rode in the rain, I wanted to stop and pack up and go home. At least from that point, the new M1 is working better,” said Smith, speaking in Austin.

“It worked well in Sepang, and then it worked well here as well, so at least I'm happy about that. From the dry point of view I found straight away a good feeling from the word go. Basically, we had one bike that was full dry, and one bike that I was riding that was 50-50, and the plan was for me to go out and have a look, then assess and come in for the dry bike.

“But in the end I stayed out one lap too long, then I looked up and it's like seven minutes to go, and I think, well, if I come in and change bikes, I get one lap, so I'll try and make this work. I was just bottoming out everywhere, and especially up the hill there I bottomed out. And as soon as it had a chance to jump off the ground, it sprung like motocross! I thought I was going to save it, but no, impossible. One of those things.

“Already for me, the package we rode right now was already very good, considering this isn't a place I've got on with well in the past, from the word go I've felt quite comfortable. If it rains, we'll do the best that we can. I don't think we have a podium package in case of rain, but by all means we can get a solid points-scoring finish.

“I think the Ducatis are very strong in the rain. So all of them are going to be hard work. If it's dry, then we're alright. The Yamaha, I believe, will be better suited with limited track time. It's a bike that generally works quite well, especially over race distance, because we know that the tyre drops quite a lot here.

“So I think that just from these four laps, I tried to do a big debrief, as much as I could, so to kind of give us a head start in case it gets dry tomorrow. The fact that we're tenth is really positive, because I'm not sure I want to go to Q1 in the rain. It's a bit of a scary one to pull together. Especially with Petrucci, Redding, they're already riding fast in the rain, and Lorenzo, I would worry for him.

“But we don't know what happens tomorrow morning. And if it races like this, then I think the Yamaha as an all-round package is a nicer bike to ride. So I'll be quite confident if we are going to go 22 laps, even with the bike I've ridden now.”