Source: Supplied.

When Bradley Smith announced on the eve of the weekend’s Qatar MotoGP opener that he would be departing Monster Energy Tech 3 Yamaha at the close of 2016, few expected an announcement on his future so soon.

This morning it was confirmed the experienced British rider will spearhead KTM Factory Racing’s Red Bull-backed MotoGP squad in 2017 and 2018.

“The MotoGP project is running exactly according to plan,” explained KTM motorsport director Pit Beirer. “Both the engineers at the factory and the test team are achieving highly professional work with two bikes and their test riders.

“By signing Bradley Smith as factory rider for two years we can now take the next step in the long journey to MotoGP. At just 25, Bradley is competing in his fourth season in the premiere class.

“He rode his way to second place in Misano and last season as overall sixth, he was clearly the best rider among all the customer teams.”

The signing of Smith follows the official roll out of the project at Austria’s Red Bull Ring in Spielberg in October 2015. The first test was conducted four weeks later in Valencia, Spain.

Since then there have been two more rounds of successful tests, also in Spain and the company has appointed Mika Kallio, Alex Hofmann and Randy de Puniet as its official test riders so far.