Crutchlow: I thought I'd be good at poker - but I'd be s**t!
When the dust settled on a spectacular battle for the final podium place at Assen, Cal Crutchlow happily reflected on an epic duel with fellow Honda man Marc Marquez, and admitted the playing of his hand on the penultimate lap ultimately cost him a second top three finish of the year.
As spots of rain dotted riders' visors in the closing eight laps, several riders eased up. Not Crutchlow, whose plan of pushing the limits of his RC213V in the driest sections of the track to maintain optimum tyre temperatures worked brilliantly. "Honestly I would have finished sixth if it wasn't for the rain," he said.
From sixth place, five seconds back of Marquez on lap 18, Crutchlow rapidly advanced toward the podium. By the penultimate lap he was third, but by then he had made a crucial error - showing the Catalan the track could be attacked in a more aggressive fashion. In other words, a red rag to the proverbial bull.
A last lap for the ages ensued, and Crutchlow was full of good grace post-race, even after Marquez's thrilling move at the fearsome Ramshoek, three corners from the flag, which demoted him to fourth. "It was good fun," he said. "I enjoy races like that."
"I'm happy," began Crutchlow, who has now finished in the top five at four of the first eight races. "I knew I had a good pace in the dry, I had it on Friday. But we never had a fantastic setup.
"I tried something on the bike and I raced with something that I have never raced with before, but I can't tell you what it is, a set-up, setting, something. I felt we needed to adjust the bike, and we never had time on Friday to do that, but I raced it.
"Honestly I would have finished sixth if it wasn't for the rain. I couldn't push enough at the start and especially in the middle of the race, but I could keep a really constant pace. I got a bad start, I was hindered by the qualifying position, you need to start with them, simple as that.
"If I had started with them [the leading group], I would have won the race, because when the rain started coming, I was faster than them. But I couldn't come across to them, because I had so many riders in front of us.
"What we know is with the Honda, when we have riders in front of us, the tire gets too hot. The best part of the race was when Dovi was a second ahead of me, and I had some fresh air on the front tire, and I was able to ride, and I was able to keep a comfortable sixth place."
Marquez just beat Crutchlow and Dovizioso for 3rd! #DutchGP #MotoGP pic.twitter.com/HhWIMqg5Ae-- CRASH.NET MotoGP (@crash_motogp) June 25, 2017
"I'm happy with the race. I made a big mistake in the race, and that was to show my hand a lap early. I should have passed him on the last lap there, and it would have been game over.
"I passed him a lap too early, but I honestly thought I had the pace to ride away from him, but then he passed me back in turn five, and if he hadn't passed me back there I probably would have got the podium there.
"The only problem was, that I showed him that the track was a lot drier than he thought it was. Then he made a fantastic pass, because I thought I was faster than him in that corner, and I was faster than him in the braking into the last corner, and I thought I'll go slower round the corner, and then really accelerate out, so he has no chance of passing me until the last corner.
"But I heard his bike, and he shut the throttle and he was braking, and then he reopened the throttle to ride underneath me. I heard "waah!" and I thought, someone's either crashed or someone's coming through, and he came through.
"But no, it was good fun. I enjoy races like that. They're hard, but I never ever have any animosity to the others, I always give as good as I get, and it was good fun fighting."
The Englishman, who had difficult races in the two previous outings at Mugello and Montmel?, was interesting when describing his riding technique when the rain began to fall. There were echoes, perhaps, of Marquez's own approach in such conditions in the past.
"Obviously, not as bad as what they thought in the front. But I was quite clever with what I did. In the drier parts of the track, I pushed hard to keep the heat in the tyres, so that when I got to the wetter parts of the track, I had a little bit more grip.
"I didn't think it was that bad, honestly. It was raining, but my main problem was corner entry, because the tires dropped off quite a lot. But if I had started with them, I was confident I would have been there. But I wasn't.
"But I lost the chance of a podium myself. I showed my hand and I shouldn't have. I always thought I'd be good at poker, but obviously I'd be shit.
"But I'm happy enough to be battling. We've had a bad two races. In Mugello, me and Dani really struggled, and in the end we never finished. Then we got to Barcelona and I had a really big problem there. Apparently I had no problems according to many people and I just rode bad races.
"But it's funny how today, I'm battling with the previous championship leader, and I'm beating the current championship leader. I didn't have a bad race today, I had problems in the last two races, and I didn't have problems here."
