Crutchlow: 'Mad' braking means wild ride

A wild braking moment at the end Qualifying 1 at Buriram ended Cal Crutchlow's chances of progressing to Q2, leaving the Englishman with a 13th place start for Sunday's Thailand MotoGP.

The sideways moment into the final corner gave a graphic illustration of the instability issues the three-time MotoGP winner is having with this year's 'physical' RC213V.

"I think you saw the reality at the moment of how hard the bike is to ride. I'm trying my best but not getting anywhere else," Crutchlow said, after also being 13th in final practice.

"I never sent it, it sent me," he added of the Turn 12 moment (above). "I was struggling to stop the bike with the instability in the engine brake and then this is what happens. The problem is as soon as the rear wheel lifts off the floor a little bit, the bike starts going mad.

"For Marc also, but he rides in a different way where he locks the rear wheel a little bit to decelerate the bike, but nobody else rides like that. So when his retouches the floor it's locking a little bit where mine's speeding up, so this is why it's snapping bad.

"We need to improve in that area but Honda know that and are very aware of that and doing a good job with trying to improve it. But at the moment we've not been able to – as a rider, team, manufacturer. We're all trying to improve that area of the bike."

Despite the lowly grid position, Crutchlow was still the next best Honda rider after Marc Marquez (third), who has his first shot at winning the 2019 title on Sunday.

Looking to next year's Honda, Crutchlow's main hope is for a less physical machine.

"I'm not weak by any stretch of the imagination, but it's just so hard and physical to ride you can't imagine," he explained. "Jorge said it immediately and as I told you I agreed with him at the time and still agree with him now.

"The bike has its strong points, it's positive points… still the corner entry - but we've lost a bit since last year because of the instability of the engine brake. Where last year we were able to probably brake deeper and keep the corner speed, now we can still brake deep but not keep the corner speed."

The main improvement from Honda this season has been more top-end power.

"We asked for that and we got it, but… the bike physically is really hard to ride. If the bike is easier to ride, we'll all be faster on it... But we need to keep our strong points. It's easier said than done!"

Crutchlow, the only Honda rider other than Marquez to stand on the podium this season, has tested the 2020 Honda prototype twice so far.

"I rode it at Misano and Brno. I was more positive about it than negative about it that's for sure… I think the full package will be towards the end of the year, so then we'll understand a bit more [about it]."