Crutchlow: 'I was trying too hard, or ran out of talent!'

Cal Crutchlow held his hands up after a fall during qualifying at Silverstone left the LCR Honda ninth on the grid for his home British MotoGP.

The Englishman was holding fifth place and had just set the fastest opening sector when he crashed on entry to Stowe, at the end of Hangar Straight.

Crutchlow thus missed the crucial final minutes of Qualifying 2 and was duly pushed down to the third row.

"Bit of an amateur mistake to be honest!" Crutchlow said of the fall. "Braked a bit too deep, still accelerating for about a second more than I had any other lap of the weekend."

Trying too hard?

"You could say trying too hard, or ran out of talent!" he joked. "It's as simple as that, because we looked on the data after and I was so close to pulling it down [and making the corner]. If I had pulled it down I would have gained a big chunk of time!

"That was why I committed to the corner. Because I knew how deep I'd braked, I knew on the backshift I had to be smoother and not lock the rear because it would have sent me on anyway.

"But I committed to it and obviously after you crash you say you shouldn't have committed and just done another lap…

"It's a fine line at the moment in MotoGP. As I told you yesterday on these one-off laps I'm not as fast as I used to be, but this weekend I feel quite good on the one-off lap and could have gone a significant amount faster.

"Also on what became my best qualifying time I lost around three tenths in one corner, so that would have already put me into the '58s. But this is the way it is. I can't complain. I did the mistake myself and that's it."

The 2016 Silverstone runner-up remains confident he has the pace to fight with the lead group on Sunday, but is concerned they might break clear before he can reach them.

"The problem is starting from ninth," he said. "It's gonna snap; there will be a group of six that go away and you need you make sure you're in the snap or else it's going to difficult to make it up.

"I'll try my best in the first laps, and to get a good start. The problem is the start here is nothing, you can't gain anything really because it's only first and second gear and then we don’t really even brake [at turn one]."

Crutchlow feels that three out of the four rear-tyre compounds are viable options for the race.

"The tyres are working well. The problem is when Michelin bring three compounds that you can use it's always difficult for us to understand which is the best. It depends on what game you want to play, who wants to be fast at the start, slow in the middle, fast at the end etc."

The already hot temperatures are set to rise even further on Sunday, with the forecast predicting 30-plus degrees.

"Our bike seems better when it's a little bit hotter and slides around a little bit more. But this weekend I think some of the other manufacturers have got a little bit better grip than us and it may play into their hands.

"It all depends on how you start and how hard the pace is at the start…"

Crutchlow, who has taken two podiums this season, is currently ninth in the world championship.