It was at the end of the first free practice sessions for the Japanese Grand Prix that Cal Crutchlow took the fifth fastest time this Friday, thus confirming the good spirits he had shown during the previous events.
On the Twin Ring of Motegi, the circuit of the Honda parent company, the driver of the LCR Honda team has long occupied an honorable place on the timesheet for a large part of the day, constantly improving his times to finally establish his best reference in 1'45.501. The 30-year-old Briton is relegated to just two tenths of Marc Márquez, the leader of the winged manufacturer, and just 0.35s behind Jorge Lorenzo, the fastest man of the day.
Credited with a solid eighth place at the end of the morning session, the Coventry native made a mistake at the very end of the session after the checkered flag was lowered, a small fall with no notable consequences.
Cal Crutchlow #35 – 5rd (1'45.501)
“The day as a whole hasn't been too bad today even if I have to admit that I'm still a little tired but I'm still relatively satisfied with the way the bike is behaving. There are undoubtedly a number of areas where we still need to improve and we are also struggling in a few areas of the route but we are not unhappy.”
“We tried several adjustments on the machine and we probably wasted a little time in the two sessions combined, but these different tests were an integral part of the program initially established before the weekend. We will now continue the analysis of our data acquisitions in order to approach Saturday with the best references recorded with a view to taking a further step in the quest for performance.”
