Crutchlow’s pace ‘nearly as good as anyone’

Cal Crutchlow believes his pace on the final day of MotoGP testing at Sepang was a match for the best the class has to offer after ending a largely positive three days with the third fastest time.

Only Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa were quicker than 32-year old Crutchlow on Tuesday, who narrowly missed out on breaking the 1m 59s barrier early in the day.

Such was his confidence, he opted against a qualifying-style run in the early evening, even though he had three soft Michelin rear tyres saved from the previous two days.

Yet it was his consistency aboard the 2018 Honda RC213V around midday that appeared to please Crutchlow most. For the first ten of a 16-lap run, the Englishman lapped in the low-mid 2m 0s – similar to the fastest pace of the day.

“We’re pleased with how the day went, definitely,” he said. “I think over the three days we did a good job and we got through nearly everything that we needed to. We ran out of time a little bit at the end of the day.

“I was going to go out in the last 20 minutes but the track was not in a great condition so I didn’t think it was possible to set a better lap time so I stayed with three new tyres on the rack that I had saved over the three days for now, but we didn’t need them anyway and I didn’t bother to push for a lap time.

“I was happy this morning with our lap time. I made some mistakes in the lap so I should have been a little faster but they were completely my own mistakes. Then in the long run I was more pleased with that.

“Simply, I started the long run with six laps on the tyre already after using it to do my fast laps this morning. So, yeah, I ended up doing another 16 laps. After ten I felt like some movement in the rear tyre and then the pace completely dropped. The rubber was completely gone. It was because I had used it in the morning to do a fast lap.

“But I was overall pleased with the pace. I think our pace is nearly as good as anyone else’s on the long run, considering we started with a six-lap used tyre. Also I didn’t start with my preferred front tyre. I started with the hard, which I was having problems with.

“It was the only one we had in our allocation so we had to use it and the front pressure went really high. We have to continue to work, but I’m pleased with the job Honda has done this winter, and I’m pleased with the job the team’s done the last three days.”

Pressed on the character of the ’18-spec engine he tested throughout, Crutchlow continued: “I’m not worried if it’s too aggressive because we’ve got electronics that control it if we want them to.

“If he doesn’t want to go as fast he can turn the torque down. But I think what we have is positive. If we have more power then we can always turn it down, instead of not having any power and we can’t turn it up.

“I think we’re in a good situation in that sense. I’m pleased with what Honda’s done. What we asked for we got. We want to make the bike as calm as possible to ride and at the moment it’s just as aggressive as last year.

“This is also one of the places where the bike is hardest to ride physically with regards to the corners and the bike being physical to ride. In the end if we can make it a little bit better here, which we did, then it will be better in other places as well.

“As I said, we need the power so give us as much as possible and we’ll work it out from there.”