VOL. 51 ISSUE 16 APRIL 22, 2014 P81
about that. From the first mo-
ment I jumped on this new mo-
torcycle I was as fast as Yamaha
and I was .20 behind Mark Mar-
quez. Straightaway I felt confi-
dent and happy. Then during the
preseason test I decided that I
needed to look at the big picture
– I needed to look into how my
racing was going to be and work
on my weaknesses. We didn't re-
ally go for the lap times so a lot
of people kind of wrote me off
again. They were like, 'This Brad-
ley kid, he did the fastest time in
Valencia, but doesn't really seem
to be doing anything now.' As
soon as we turned up for race
weekend at Qatar, I felt good. I
knew I was happy with the bike
and that we needed to bring the
A Game and that's finally what we
did. Obviously, I hope this contin-
ues on into the season. Funda-
mentally, I have to put the speed
down to the bike, experience and
the continual work off the track.
Just what kind of work do
you do off the track?
I've been looking a lot into
where I'm weak and where I've
gone wrong. I knew I had to go
away and put a lot more training
in this winter. Riding these bikes
at this type of level certainly isn't
easy. Other guys, their bodies
naturally adapted over the seven
years that they've been in the
championship. I've only been in it
12 months. I had to work a little bit
harder and speed up that stuff. I
felt like I was maybe the missing
link last year. I didn't feel that I was
strong enough and fit enough so
I went away and worked with a
new trainer and came back stron-
ger this year.
You come off as being very
honest with yourself. Can, per-
haps, you psych yourself out
by being so honest?
I understand what you're say-
ing, but like to make the situa-
tion very clear to myself. I don't
hide from the truth. Yeah, like you
said, you can psych yourself out.
By me being honest and saying
I wasn't strong enough, if I didn't
do anything about it then I'd be
psyching myself out because I'd
know I'm still weak. But the fact
Smith at speed at Circuit of the
Americas.
