Crutchlow ‘took no risks’ on opening night

Cal Crutchlow ahs admitted to taking no risks on the opening night of the 2016 MotoGP season at Qatar, instead taking it easy as he got back up to speed on the dirty and sand-coated Losail circuit.

“I didn’t take too many risks tonight – the track was really dirty, and we seemed to have some strange things going on with the engine braking – the rear keeps coming around for no real reason. We can’t use the rear brake at all, which is something we really need to be doing on the Honda, so we have to investigate that.

“We used the hard rear tyre, and it could be that, with the conditions we had. I never took too many risks though, we gathered some data, and we know the track will be a lot better tomorrow. We can start testing some things tomorrow, too, like the different tyres – but the most important thing was that we got through the night.”

The LCR Honda rider also admitted to being cautious through the corner where he crashed out of the test two weeks ago at, causing himself an unfortunate injury in the process!

“I was losing four tenths every lap in the corner where the bike landed on my balls! You can tell I haven’t pushed much form that! We have some lap time left to find, but over race difference I don’t know – I don’t think any of the Honda riders know that yet.”