KTM’s Bradley Smith is happy with his first day’s MotoGP work under new crew chief Esteban Garcia and now has some ‘fire in his belly’ for the rest of the weekend.

Garcia was brought over from the test team to replace Smith’s long-time collaborator Tom Jojic and he has started by having Smith work on long runs to gain data for tyre life.

“We’re trying to put a lot of laps on old tyres, working with the electronics, with my riding style and everything to basically improve. It also puts a little bit of fire in my belly as when I come in for a new tyre tomorrow I will be able to push a bit harder and go faster. It’s a different way of working but let’s see how it does tomorrow,” said Smith, speaking at Silverstone.

“We were able to put a lot of laps on the softs to see how that is as a race option, there is no drop in performance so that’s not too bad. I was able to keep consistent laptimes, the hard was surprisingly good this afternoon looking at other riders’ lap times so it looks like a good tyre for hot conditions.”

Click here to read Smith’s evaluation of the season so far