Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) had a difficult weekend in Italy after he'd been fastest on Friday at Mugello, and the Brit heads for the Catalan GP with a 0 after some bad luck on the final lap as he was collected by Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) when the Spaniard attempted an overtake.
Difficult race today. Sorry @calcrutchlow for this very unfortunate crash. #ItalianGP pic.twitter.com/eZG2D4LbyI
— Dani Pedrosa (@26_DaniPedrosa) 4 June 2017
Initially angry, the two-time GP winner tweeted his forgiveness and knows racing is racing - out to move back up the scoreboard in Barcelona, although the challenge, he says, will be a big one.
I do forgive @26_DaniPedrosa and he said sorry. That's fine. I've done it before and probably will again in my career …! Onto next one
— Cal Crutchlow (@calcrutchlow) 4 June 2017
Cal Crutchlow, DNF: “These things happen in racing. Obviously at the time I was annoyed with Dani (Pedrosa) and he was clearly frustrated with the position he was in. But we were all suffering this weekend on the Hondas and the end result was that we crashed and that’s it. He came from a long way back, I didn’t hear him but suddenly I saw him and then was on top of him! It was a shame as I was happy enough in the race today, I felt quite good and never pushed over the limit. I was making sure I was going to finish the race and managing the situation with the front tyre.
“When we tested in Barcelona the other week it seemed really difficult, it could have been our worst circuit, but now we’ve come here and maybe thought this was our worst circuit! So the next round at Barcelona will be really difficult for us as well, the only saving grace is that our bike likes to slide a lot and we can normally do decent lap times at the end of a race with the bike sliding.”