In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, 15-year-old British schoolboy Bradley Smith reviews the Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai, his fourth race as a 125cc grand prix rider for the Repsol Honda team...


China was another hell of an experience both on and off the track. The race was positive as I made a good start (amazingly enough for me after the three dismal starts so far this year) and then cracked on and picked off seven people on that first lap, but then they soon got me back.

I was really giving people too much room into the corners in an effort to try and be quick around the lap rather than staying ahead of them. I was weighing them up elsewhere on the lap and gradually managed to pick people off again, but then someone would mess it all up for me!

That then meant there was a bit of a group effort to get further up the order as a 'peleton' with me sometimes at the front and sometimes at the back, and that worked well as we just caught the group ahead at the very last corner. The main thing was that I was the one at the sharp end of that group! I crossed the line in 22nd, from 30th on the grid, and enjoyed it all as a whole.

The back-to-back races start now we are into Europe. I hate doing a race, coming home and then waiting a while before another one; I just want to bang them off and get through them quickly. 8 races in 11 weekends is going to be good for us in 125 - just one less than the MotoGP guys who go to Laguna at the end of July.

Jet lag in China wasn't too bad - I stayed up all of Wednesday so I managed to sleep well that night, but boy oh boy did I then sleep; all the way through to midday Thursday! That really hammered me for the following night as I went to bed at 10, but then awoke at midnight leaving me to lie there looking at the ceiling until 3 thinking, 'I've just got to get to sleep!' It's horrible as the more you try, the worse it gets...

Since China I've been Shanghai back to Paris, to Home in the UK, to Barcelona, to Paris and then here to Le Mans so I've got to know what the inside of planes look like...

Here at Le Mans the weather looks good for the weekend so I hope to get the maximum amount of running in before the race on Sunday. I won't have much time to look out of the corner of my eye, but I gather I may see a few Union Flags, but I'll have a look on some in laps.

I'll pop back with some more news after this weekend in France.

Bradley 38