In his latest column for Crash.net, Bradley Smith looks back at the Grand Prix of Catalunya, a race that his team-mate and title rival Julian Simon looked set to win...

Not a disaster but certainly my most difficult weekend of the season so far. I don't want any more eighth places but at the end of the day I only lost five points to Julian Simon, I'm only 1.5 points behind him in the championship, I stayed on two wheels and I'm the only rider in the 125 World Championship that has finished in the top ten in the first six races.

It was fortunate for me that Julian thought the race was over a lap before the finish when he was leading so comfortably but I would not have wished that on anybody, let alone my own team-mate.

He told me as he came onto the start and finish straight he looked at the big tower that dominates the track that said it was the last lap instead of checking with his pit board which clearly showed there was still one lap to go. It was a demanding mental weekend for him at his home race but he also told me he will never ever make that mistake again.

His missed the chance of standing on the top step of the podium at his home race which we all want to do. In the end he even missed any step on the podium after the photo finish put him down in fourth place behind our third Aspar team-mate Sergio Gadea. The only consolation for us was it was the team's 200th podium finish.

It was a struggle for us all weekend starting in the first practice session on Friday afternoon. The Circuit de Catalunya requires a bigger tyre with such a variation of corners and cambers. The trouble is I've never got on with the bigger tyre and have struggled to get a good feeling on the bike. Consequently, we were always playing catch-up to get the correct setting to help me overcome the problem.

It was only in the last three laps of the Sunday morning warm-up session that we made some real progress and we didn't even have time to test it with a full load of fuel. Also we'd worked so hard on the suspension we took our eyes off the engine and the power was never quite right.

I kept pushing hard but when I lost the tow from the second group I knew it was going to be tough especially as the tyres started to slide after around seven laps. I was determined to do nothing crazy although I did try and pass Stephan Bradl on the line for seventh place.

I'm testing for a couple of days in Valencia this week which is the perfect way to get the weekend out of my system. We will testing with that larger tyre because we will certainly be using it at the Sachsenring, Brno, Sepang and perhaps Valencia this season and so both me and the team have to sort out a solution to those Barcelona problems.