Bradley Smith admitted that it is not surprise that he was replaced by Frenchman Johann Zarco for 2019 season. It is confirmed this week that Bradley has lost his KTM seat when Pol Espargaro signed a contract extension and Johann Zarco signed a 2 year contract with KTM for 2019.
Bradley hopes that he will find a seat in his former team Tech3 once the team join KTM dropping Yamaha in 2019.
“The nice thing about it all, and KTM will tell you as well, that this announcement doesn’t mean that I’m out of the group,” Smith said. “It just means that I’m out of the factory team.
“They’ve still got two bikes available on the grid – they would like to put me on one of them, and they can sit and wait and decide what they want to do, when they want to do that, and if my results warrant that.
“But right now that’s the main focus for us as a group, and that option’s available to me.”
“I’m alright. I mean, let’s not beat around the bush, the simple thing is that [they said] ‘you’re not out of a job, but you’re out of the team’, which initially is always hard to swallow,” he said.
“But I’d be lying to you if [I said I] didn’t know that it was on the cards.”
