Cal Crutchlow has called for “drastic changes” after crashing out of qualifying for the German Grand Prix following a recurrence of the front-end problems that forced him to retire from the last two races. The Briton had just climbed into the top ten but the crash late in the session saw him drop to 12th.
Crutchlow slid off the track at the high-speed turn eight, fortunately walking away unhurt, but the Monster Yamaha Tech3 man was concerned by the familiar circumstances that surround his accident.
“I am not too happy with today because we had a big crash at the end of the session. I thought we made a good improvement in the qualifying session and we made it into the 22s with an old race tyre and I was happy. I came in to put a new soft tyre on and with the extra grip we just pushed the front too much. We don’t really know why at the moment, but we will have a look at the data to see if we can make some improvement for the race.
“It is the same issue that I have been complaining about at the last two or three races, so we have to start considering making some drastic changes. We will keep working and the aim will be to get in the top 10 for tomorrow and I am determined to bring the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team a good result.”
The Tech 3 team has struggled all weekend but Colin Edwards managed to salvage seventh on the other YZR-M1 with a lap that surprised even himself.
“Honestly, I have no idea where I pulled that last lap from. I didn’t feel like I had a low 1.22 lap in me at all today but I just tried to push as hard as I could and stay as smooth as I could on that final lap and to get seventh is a great result for me and my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3.
The American revealed that he was feeling under the weather during qualifying but ill or not, is confident that he can put on a good showing in tomorrow's race.
“Today hasn’t been easy because I woke up this morning with a really bad sore throat. It feels like I’m chewing gravel but I’ve lost my voice and can hardly talk, so communication with the crew wasn’t that easy. But we’ve got such a great understanding that even though they could barely hear what I was saying, my team gave me a good bike for the end of the session.”
“I’ve never got on with this track and today we’ve made so many changes to the bike that we’re a million miles away from our normal setting. I’d say we haven’t done big changes like this to the bike in about a year. I haven’t been able to get the bike turned but we kept plugging away and found something this afternoon that was better. This track is so tight and twisty you need a good turning bike, so I’m confident we can have a strong race.”
