After months of expectation, the MotoE World Cup officially got underway with the first day of Free Practice taking place this Friday at Sachsenring. The ONE Energy Racing team and rider Bradley Smith started the competition positively, finishing the day inside the top five.
Smith began things calmly in the 30 minute FP1 session, riding his MotoE bike for the first time since his brief participation in the Valencia test two weeks ago. The ONE Energy Racing rider continued to lower his lap times and he finished seventh with a time of 1min 29.727secs.
In the afternoon, Smith went back out on track with the aim of improving his lap times from the morning, something he did quickly on his fourth lap. In FP2, which was briefly interrupted by a red flag due to a crash for another rider, he took a big step forward, shaving almost a second off his best time and ending the day as the fifth fastest rider thanks to his 1min 28.801secs lap.
The first E-Pole session will take place at Sachsenring at 4pm local time on Saturday, with a single-lap qualifying format. Smith will be 14th out to attempt to take an historic pole position.
#38 Bradley Smith
“It’s been a positive first day. In the morning we had to get used to the bike as much as possible and in the afternoon we made small changes to the setup to better adapt the bike to this track. We had the advantage of arriving here having been quite competitive at the Valencia test, so we didn’t have to make big adjustments here. From now on, what we have to do is finish understanding small details such as suspension or tyre pressure, in order to maintain a stable performance for the race. We are where we need to be: I feel consistent and comfortable, especially after this afternoon’s session.
Tomorrow we have to focus on trying to qualify on the front two rows in E-Pole, in order to have a good chance of fighting for victory on Sunday. We have to avoid making mistakes in tomorrow’s qualifying session and Sunday’s race, since the season is very short and we have to try to score a good amount of points at every round.”
