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MotoGP Qatar: Smith to work on fast-corner pace after missing Q2

Britain’s Bradley Smith says he needs to work on his fast-corner pace during the remaining MotoGP sessions in Qatar as that is where he is losing ground to the front runners.

Smith, who added to his crash tally today with a fall under braking at turn six, spent the first part of free practice three carrying out a race run on the harder option tyre before breaking into the top ten with the soft tyre - but the crash put paid to an decrease in laptime, and he slipped to 12th and out of an automatic qualifying two spot.

"Of course, I would have preferred to finish today inside the top ten, but the team did a good job and we are confident for tomorrow. To be honest, we struggled a bit in FP2, but then we made some changes and slowly in the third practice I started to feel more comfortable. In the first part of that session, I did a long run with the hard tyre and then switched over to the soft compound, and immediately I was quick,” said Smith.

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“However, I unfortunately made a small mistake during braking into turn six which caused me to fall and it meant that I had to use my second bike with only nine minutes remaining. I actually felt a bit better on it, but we still need to improve and make some modifications in order to get the best out of the Yamaha in the fast corners, especially in sectors 3 and 4. This will be our aim for FP4 and we will try to gain a bit in those areas. I will have to go through QP1 so I need to focus on riding a strong lap there to be able to progress to qualifying two tomorrow.”

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