LCR Honda Castrol rider Cal Crutchlow ended the Gran Premi Monster Energy de Calalunya on a high after he took the checkered flag in fourth place, recovering from a difficult qualifying session which left him starting the race from P10.
Crutchlow had a busy race carving his way up to fourth and eventually became locked in a brilliant battle with Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team). The Spaniard posed as a road block for the LCR rider, who felt he should have passed Pedrosa earlier. “I just made hard work of it, I should have passed him a couple of laps earlier and maybe I would have been able to push for Valentino,” explained the number 35, who finished just under four seconds behind Rossi. “But I felt I was riding in a great rhythm once I passed Dani, and also just before when I was trying to catch Petrux and Dani.”
In Q2, Crutchlow crashed at the penultimate corner while on a personal best lap, which left the Brit having to start Sunday’s race down in P10 on the grid – something the Isle of Man resident wants to improve. “I just had a bad qualifying, it’s as simple as that. We need to try and perform better there and try to perform better at the start of the race to try and be competitive at the end because you can see I was competitive at the end.” He wasn't wrong, Crutchlow was lapping quicker than the riders around him at the end of the race, including third place man Rossi.
The 32-year-old’s tyre choice of a front medium and soft rear seemed to aid his superior lap times in the latter stages, with Crutchlow pleased with how his medium front performed. “I felt at the start of the race I was overloading it a little bit on the full tank, but towards the middle and end of the race it was fantastic. But that’s the way it goes, you have to try and gamble sometimes and it payed off for us today.”
Overall, it was another good day at the office for the Argentina GP race winner, who now sits 6th in the World Championship on 69 points heading to Assen. “All credit to the LCR Castrol Honda team this weekend, they did a good job, I had a bad qualifying and I was 18th this morning but 4th this afternoon so I think we did well.”