Cal Crutchlow admitted he even surprised himself with his blistering pace in wet conditions during qualifying at Silverstone.
The home favourite clinched a memorable pole position, almost a full second quicker than anybody else, and later explained that he didn’t feel he was pushing to the limit but soon found out how treacherous conditions were.
“Honestly I didn’t believe I was pushing that much. In the first sector I wasn’t so fast, I had a little moment, and the rest of the lap I was thinking, keep it together and the next lap, we’ll push. The first time I tried to push, I nearly crashed at turn one! I then looked at the lap times and saw everyone else was quite a lot slower and thought maybe I was taking some risks. I was cruising around the rest of qualifying thinking, if somebody starts to come a little bit closer, then I’ll go.”
Converting pole into a home victory may be too tough a task but the LCR Honda rider is still confident that he has the race pace to compete around the podium positions.
“I think over one or two laps, we’re probably a little bit stronger than our actual position. I believe also with the harder race tyre, we’re in good shape to be in the top five. The big worry is probably the Ducatis who are so fast in the straight with no wheelie but our issues are better here because there isn’t as much hard acceleration so I think tomorrow in the dry we can be quite competitive.”
“There will always be pressure in front of a British crowd. I’ll just try my best, that’s all I can do.”
