Crutchlow: I won't be moving over

A straight talking Cal Crutchlow said that “I won’t be moving for anybody on Sunday” when he was asked for his thoughts on what would happen as Valentino Rossi made his way through the pack.

“I won’t be moving over for anybody,” said Crutchlow. “My team pay millions of euros to be here and I think out of respect to them I’ll try my best every race. I’m not pulling over for someone and that’s no disrespect to any other rider on the grid.”

With a petition requesting Rossi’s penalty to be annulled and fans tweeting riders to ask them to let Rossi past Crutchlow made clear his position.

“I think it’s completely out of order that people are asking us to do that. We’re here to race. I never made the rules. I didn’t do anything wrong so why should I give in to pressure from the public to move over? It’s disrespectful to me as a motorcycle racer, it’s disrespectful to my team who have 50 staff here every weekend busting their ass for me to finish one place, one second, one tenth higher up than what I was going to. If you ask all the other riders the same question they won’t give you that answer but they’ll feel the same.”

When asked what he thinks will happen during Sunday’s race Crutchlow simply said he was hoping for a clean fight.

“All I have to say is that I hope the best man on Sunday wins, I hope they have a clean fight, which is going to be more difficult with Valentino on the back of the grid. They’ve both rode fantastic all year and the champion at the end of the race will be the champion and that’s it.”