Heavy crash in the morning hampers Crutchlow’s testing progress

Today’s test at Catalunya ended in positive fashion for British rider Cal Crutchlow after a difficult start this morning.

Heavy overnight rain meant the track surface was still littered with damp patches and it wasn’t until after 11am that Dovizioso and Crutchlow were able to commence their work.

Crutchlow unfortunately suffered a heavy fall at Turn 4 on only his second flying lap, the 26-year-old losing the front on a wet patch in the braking zone. Fortunately Crutchlow escaped injury and he was able to return to the t rack after midday, setting a best pace of 1.42.378 to finish seventh quickest.

The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team now heads to the Motorland Aragon circuit for a further one-day test on Wednesday.

Cal Crutchlow 7th1.42.378 – 48 laps:
“Today certainly could have got off to a better start and the crash made it quite tough. We had a lot of work to do but I crashed on only my second lap. It was my fault because we knew there was likely to be some water under the bridge at Turn 4 after the overnight rain. The problem is you can’t see the wet patch and as soon as I touched the brakes I crashed. It was a very fast crash and I’ve lost some skin on my r ight leg and back. Luckily though I am fine and I was able to go back out and build up my confidence again. Losing one bike made it difficult because it meant we had to put all the new parts we had on one bike, so I wasn’t sure exactly where the improvements were. If we had two bikes it would have made it easier to understand specifically what felt better. But I was able to work a lot on used tyres and my pace at the end of the day was pleasing. I wasn’t going to push too hard and risk another crash so I’m sure I could be higher than seventh. Now I’m looking forward to Aragon where hopefully I can get a better understanding for the new parts Yamaha delivered here.”

Source: Team Tech3

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Posted by SV on 6:55 pm. Filed under Cal Crutchlow, MotoGP, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry