In his latest column for Crash.net, Bradley Smith looks back on the Portuguese Grand Prix weekend, which began with a broken metatarsal and ended with another podium...

Three podium finishes on the bounce and regaining second place in the championship after racing at one of my bogey tracks sums up a good weekend in Portugal, but it's me all over to say I'm a bit disappointed. I let an opportunity to win a race slip by although third place was better than I expected.

Perhaps I was planning and thinking a bit too much about the last lap in those last few laps and Pol Espargaro and Sandro Cortese just got away. They both rode brilliantly in the last couple of laps and I got caught out, but the plusses certainly outweighed the minuses.

With three rounds of the 125cc championship remaining I'm 11 points in front of Nico Terol in our battle for second place. I set my fastest ever lap round the Estoril circuit. I didn't get beaten up in the early laps after starting from the front row of the grid and with a fair bit of fighting and screaming I rode from seventh to first place at one stage of a pretty hectic race.

The weekend didn't start well when I crashed in the first practice session on Friday afternoon. It was a strange crash and I was pushing just a little bit too hard with a new set-up. I think our four-week break meant that that by body and especially my feet where not prepared for such a bang. I really slapped my feet hard when I hit the ground and fractured a metatarsal bone in my right foot. It's sore when I walk and does keep swelling up but was no problem when on the bike.

Of course the crash immediately put us behind and there was only six minutes of qualifying left when we put in a new tyre and suddenly it all started to click. I qualified third with a front row start and the television pictures showed just how happy I was by pumping my fist in the air.

I made a decent start in the race and as I said didn't get beaten up in those early laps but then got into the left hand bend at the end of the back straight a little too aggressively with my new found braking form.

Nico Terol was right behind and his front brake lever clipped me and down he went. I apologised afterwards but he was fine and realised it was just a racing accident. We both could have crashed but I stayed on, but then had to fight my way back up to the front to be involved in that battle for the win in the last few laps.

Nico was not the only one to crash with my Aspar team-mate and championship leader Julian Simon going down when leading comfortably. There was enormous pressure on him because he had a chance to clinch the World title for the first time this season.