OXFORDSHIRE rider Bradley Smith admits it will be tricky for his Red Bull KTM MotoGP team to continue their upward climb when they compete in the Grand Prix of Americas at Austin, Texas tomorrow.

The outfit secured their first points of a debut season when Pol Espargaro and Smith came 14th and 15th respectively in the last round at Argentina, having started 18th and 19th on the grid.

This was an improvement on the opening round in Qatar.

But Smith was in realistic mood about the challenge facing his team.

“Austin is going to be tough for us,” he said

“We have no data or information, there are 22 corners and it’s quite a technical layout so it’s going to be difficult.”

However, Smith was buoyed by the display in Argentina.

He said: “We made a good step forward from Qatar because there we weren’t able to fight with the group ahead of us.

“Here we could both stay with them for most of the race, so we improved by another three to four seconds. I was really pleased with my race.

“All weekend I was struggling to do 1min 41sec (lap times) but then in the race they were all mid-to-low 41s, so I was happy with that

“Of course we need to continue to improve but right now we have to be happy with what we are doing race-by-race.”

Team manager Mike Leitner said: “ A lot of tracks we go to now will be new for us. We can only try to learn.

“Then next year when we come back, we will have already reached another level.”