'It's what we do' - Crutchlow from hospital to eighth

Cal Crutchlow rode out of the LCR Honda garage to start morning warm-up for the French MotoGP just an hour after leaving hospital, following a sleepless night of frequent blood tests.

The Englishman had been under observation due to 'blood on the lungs' plus a painful hip injury, following a monstrous highside in Saturday's qualifying.

Crutchlow went on to not only complete the 27-lap race, but overtook two riders in the closing stages to claim an unlikely eighth position.

Told it was a pretty impressive performance, he replied:

"Yeah but if I hadn’t have crashed yesterday maybe we could have been on the podium today. So I'm disappointed with the result for that reason."

Crutchlow is no stranger to riding despite painful injuries, but the triple MotoGP race winner conceded:

"This was probably the worst, because the whole race I was unable to breathe very well, as you can imagine, with blood on the lungs.

"When I first crashed, did I think I'd be racing today? No, not at all. But a bit later on I was determined to and it started the whole other problems [of being passed fit].

"But in the end, I didn't want to race to be a hero. I raced because I love racing.

"I think all racers are the same, you saw when Valentino broke his leg how fast he wanted to come back. How fast Jack [Miller] came back when he broke his leg. It's just what we do. It's our lives, our jobs.

"If I just would have jacked it in and said 'okay, let's get the plane home' yesterday, then I would have probably known that I was not enjoying riding, when actually I really am enjoying riding now.

"I just made the mistake in qualifying. That's it."

'I flew big time'

The chain of events leading up to Crutchlow's accident - and influencing the extent of his injuries - began when he missed out on direct access to Qualifying 2 by a single place, having been ranked eleventh on the combined timesheets after Saturday's morning's FP3 session.

"I was not happy that I was in Qualifying 1. Because I actually set a lap time that was possible for fourth, but I did it one-second after the flag went out in FP3!" Crutchlow revealed.

The Englishman then fell in FP4 - an incident that may well have contributed to his later injuries, more of that later - before rushing back into action for Qualifying 1, where his big accident occurred through the Garage Vert double right hander.

"It was my own fault when I highsided. The problem was I lost the rear initially and then I shut the throttle but the rear continued to come round. So actually the crash was off-throttle, it was just so far round that I flew big time."

'And then the drama started'

After the heavy impact, Crutchlow came to a rest motionless at the side of the circuit.

"And then the drama started because I couldn't breathe at all at the side of the track," he said. "I was really upset at the time that the red flags didn't come out because I was lying at the side of the track with bikes coming past my head, with marshals around me that are also in danger.

"The red flag went out [later] and I know it's a qualifying session, but I was lay there absolutely unable to breathe but they [marshals] couldn't attend to me because they were watching where the bikes were coming from."

'Blood on the lung'

Crutchlow was moved to a waiting ambulance by stretcher and then taken to the circuit Medical Centre.

"I winded myself but the big thing is - which is the really I stayed in hospital - was I have blood on the lung.

"I also had a contusion to my pelvis area. I honestly thought my pelvis was broken because internally around my stomach was really sore at the time and when I got to the Medical Centre.

"I had a CT scan and they found there was a problem with the lung. The proteins of the heart were not good, that was another reason they kept me in, but it could have been the contusions. A contusion sends your heart protein strange.

"So that's why they kept me in [overnight] and I had to have the oxygen for quite a long time yesterday. But I left the hospital this morning so I was able to come to the track and then go out this morning."

Crutchlow did not want to comment on whether he had checked himself out of hospital.

Woken every two hours

"I didn't feel great because I had to be woken every two hours during the night for my blood [checks]. Then we had planned to check out of the hospital at around 6:30am and I never got out until about 8:30 or something.

"To be honest I didn't think I was going to be racing today. [First] because I thought we were either going to get arrested or be in a car crash with Lucio [Cecchinello] driving us back to see the [circuit] doctors!"

After being declared fit, Crutchlow got ready for warm-up, which he finished in eleventh place.

'My fault for not changing leathers'

Returning to Saturday, given the short timeframe between Crutchlow's FP4 and Qualifying 1 accidents, questions were raised about whether his airbag system had successfully deployed on both occasions.

The MotoGP rules state:

'Every rider must start each track session with a functional Airbag system. Once the airbag has been deployed, the responsibility for continuing the practice or race rests with the rider.'

Meanwhile Alpinestars state that their grand prix Tech-Air Race leathers feature a 'Unique Dual Charge' system:

'This patented innovation offers the rider two airbag inflations without needing to reset or recharge the system after the first charge... This allows the rider to crash once, then continue riding while having the same level of protection without the need to immediately change or update the system.'

But Crutchlow explained that his particular airbag "doesn't fire twice" and there had been no airbag to deploy in the second, much bigger, Q1 accident "because I never changed leathers".

"It was completely my own fault," he admitted.

"First of all, the Alpinestars airbag works fantastically, but it only goes off once on our suits. And that's not because we want it to go off once, that's not to save weight, that's the way it's designed.

"It never went off because I never changed leathers. And I never changed leathers because I couldn't get in the other suit, because at the time - between FP4 and [Qualifying 1] - I started to try to get in it, couldn't get in it for one reason or another, so I opted to keep the same suit. My own fault."

That decision was to prove a painful one.

"I've not even a shadow of a doubt that the [airbag] definitely would have helped me in terms of my injuries," he said. "The airbag goes straight over my hip, where I basically nearly broke.

"As I said, my own fault for not changing suit. Nothing to do with Alpinestars, nothing to do with anybody else. And it definitely would have helped me and protected me more."

'I never thought to pull in'

Crutchlow understandably got off to a cautious start in the race and didn't start to push until the second half of the grand prix.

"I was just not willing to push at the start of the race. The first 15 laps I was just riding round to make sure that I stayed on the bike," he said.

"But I never thought to pull in, I thought 'just keep riding and see what you get'. And if I crashed today I would have been in trouble, I can tell you that.

"So the main thing was to stay on the bike and finish the race but once I started to feel comfortable - with ten laps to go - I started to push a little and was able to pick some riders off."

'Our aim is to be on the podium at Mugello'

Crutchlow, eighth in the world championship but just 13 points from second place Maverick Vinales, faces another tough physical test at Mugello in two weeks' time - but is aiming high.

"This was one of the worst tracks with regards to not being physically great because, you do get some rest down the straight but then you have turn one that's fast and you get no rest otherwise. Mugello's even harder… but our aim is to be on the podium there."