Cal Crutchlow is refusing to panic despite finishing Friday practice at Silverstone down in fifteenth position. The Briton trailed pacesetter Jorge Lorenzo by 1.3 seconds but pointed out that he was caught up in the traffic early in the session while his rear tyre was new. Given the strategy the Honda riders adopted in FP2, he admitted that was always going to leave him lower in the order.
“The team asked me why I was so slow and I said Fridays here normally don’t go to plan so I’m glad to make it out unscathed. Mind you, there are a few hours to go, I might crash the scooter yet! We tried a few different things in the session. I wasn’t too happy because at the start of the session, me, Dani, Marc and Scott decided we would only use one rear tyre in that session and I got held up completely and the tyre was wrecked. We needed to use the tyre to go fast at the start and we didn’t take advantage.”
“I look forward to trying something else tomorrow because on the Honda, the hard rear tyre doesn’t work. The Yamahas have a lot more grip and they’re able to use that tyre.”
The LCR Honda rider also acknowledged his history of bad luck at Silverstone during his MotoGP career but claims he knows where to improve to ensure he advances comfortably into Q2 tomorrow.
“I was pleased to be fifteenth because that means we’d get a point in the race! I’m not overly concerned. I’ve started at the back of the grid here and finished sixth but hopefully we can start a bit further forward. I wasn’t pushing like I would normally push on a weekend but it’s bitten me too many times here. We know where we need to gain the time and there are a lot of guys who have done only one fast lap.”
