It’s such a privilege to be even considered for the ride, let alone get the job. I had three great years with Honda when I rode for the Gary Ekerold team, and that was the key for me. They’re such a good manufacturer, gave us such a lot of support and took me to the British Supersport Championship last year. I then left and went to Suzuki for a year, which has been a great experience and a character-building year, and one that I think has helped me on my stepping-stone to moving back to Honda in BSB. To now be riding for the twice championship-winning team is an absolute honour.
I’m very much looking forward to working with Leon Haslam as my team-mate too. He’s a good friend of mine and I think we’ll work well together. If someone had said to me in the paddock ‘who’s one of the riders you’d really like to work with?’ I would have said Leon. We both have the same sort of work ethic, we both train hard and we both want the same thing which is the British title, but we’ll be good mates and good team-mates, and hopefully we can bounce off each other a little bit because we’re obviously also going to be rivals.
I’ve discussed a testing programme with Honda that everyone’s happy with, and I’m really looking forward to going down to the workshops to meet the team and begin working with them. At the end of the day it’s not just about getting straight on the bike; it’s about building relationships with all the guys and helping the team win the championship. With the success HM Plant Honda have had this year, I see no reason why they won’t have the same success next year.
Suzuki will be good in 2008 as well – I’m positive about that – but I think Honda as a manufacturer are so good at coming out with a bike that’s capable of winning straightaway, and as a team and as a company HM Plant are just that little step ahead of everyone else.
![British Superbike star Cal Crutchlow on his way to victory on his final appearance for Rizla Suzuki in Mallory Park's Race of the Year in 2007 [pic credit: Neil Gilbert]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/393620.jpg)
