Britain’s Bradley Smith needs to find another half a second in pace during the opening MotoGP race weekend at Qatar if he is to challenge for points.

That is the Red Bull KTM man’s view after three days of testing at the Losail circuit but he says there have been a lot of positives to take away and many improvements made to the RS-GP’s setup.

“We were just clarifying the parts and chassis that we’re going to race with, and I’m pleased with the improvements again today. I think we were able to improve another 2.5 seconds over the three days and the track conditions were a bit better today. I found my performance on the medium tyre was better and I think that might be a race option for us,” said Smith.

“In general, we were working with the mapping and the electronics, and we made some good progress, especially in the electronics. We now have something that is a lot more consistent and good over the race distance with all tires, so everybody did a really good job. Looking at the lap times, we have to find another half a second. We’re close to the two guys in front but then there’s a gap to the next group, and that’s where we want to be if we want to fight for points.”