In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, 15-year-old Repsol Honda rider Bradley Smith recalls his unexpected exit from Sunday's 125cc Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril and looks ahead to the Valencia season finale...
After Motegi, where I was the first Honda over the line, in eighth, things were good for the next two weeks before Portugal. The buzz of a good result is great, but likewise we had to keep our heads down for Estoril and another new track.
Qualifying was a bit of a slip up as we found a small mistake in the set-up which is why I slipped down the order at the end, but the positive was that we knew how to sort the problem for Sunday. Making some changes to the bike for the warm-up took a bit of 'blind faith' for all of us as it’s such a short session, but we got it right so from 20th on the grid I could battle up to 12th and be back where I know I can be.
It was feeling very good and comfortable to be at that level. Nothing out of control or on the limit. Sometimes you do some races or laps and you feel a bit 'Whoooa, this is all a bit ragged edge', but that was not the case on Sunday. The thing highsided me without warning and I fell hard onto the tarmac. It hurt both physically and mentally, but first I had to play dodgems missing the others whizzing past me.
Anyway, I got out of the track on Sunday night and got home early Monday morning. I’ve not been at school because we are all on a work experience week - but I already did that at the track 15 times already this year! I’m helping out my Dad with his delivery business so I’m keeping busy, together with doing some training to keep tip-top for Valencia next week.
Although I’ve been to Valencia before and won a Spanish Championship race there last year, I am not going to go there with the same mind set I had at
Jerez at the top of the year. I thought I had the place sussed there, but in actual fact, braking points were a lot deeper than before because grand prix is another level.
