In the sweltering heat of the Chang International Circuit on Sunday Englishman Kyle Smith was one of the key players in an epic WorldSSP race which featured crashes, technical issues, some superb battles and unfortunately for Smith a black flag for him as he was disqualified on the last lap.

GEMAR Team Lorini rider Smith was in the victory chase but was disqualified late on following a series of actions throughout the race. Making a manoeuvre in the early part of the race which led to Thai wildcard Chalermpol Polamai (Yamaha Thailand Racing Team) crash, Smith was then involved in an over-take which subsequently saw Christian Gamarino (BARDAHL EVAN BROS. Honda Racing) crash out of second place with 12 laps to go.

Follow these actions a penalty from race direction was put out to Smith, to drop three positions. However Smith didn’t adhere to this penalty which meant a second penalty was ensued; this time a ride through penalty, again ignored by Smith. Finally on the last lap it was decided to black flag Smith for his actions, this time involving an overtake on Decha Kraisart (Yamaha Thailand Racing Team), on top of ignoring the above actions.

Despite all this, Smith was able to bounce back from two run-offs and fell back down the order to ninth, fighting with great pace to run with eventual race winner Federico Caricasulo (GRT Yamaha Official WorldSSP Team) for the lead before he was ultimately black flagged.

“Well that was a disappointment,” he stated on his official website kylesmithracing.co.uk. “I had a real problem with my front brake which kept fading then coming back and I just couldn’t stop when I passed the 3 guys. I’m sorry for Gamarino that he crashed but it wasn’t a lunge and I think the video shows that. I had to change my braking to compensate and think I could have had the win with another lap but instead its a DQ.”