Grand Prix of the Czech Republic Brno MotoGP J3: Cal Crutchlow fifth manages to beat Valentino Rossi

After a very good fight against the Italian champion who finished first among the Yamaha riders in sixth position, Cal Crutchlow managed to impose his Honda hard to score the points for fifth place and thus progress to eighth position in the Championship, preceding Fabio Quartararo.

At the end of the first day of free practice, the Briton occupied eighth position with a time of 1'56.443, 0.641 behind leader Fabio Quartararo. He concluded these free practices in the same eighth place due to FP3 being contested on a wet track, qualifying directly for Q2. This took place with difficulty and Cal had to settle for eleventh place with a time of 2'07.123 to 4.370 from pole position. Marc Márquez.

During the race, the distance of which was slightly reduced, with 17 laps to go from the checkered flag Crutchlow was in seventh place, 3.8 behind leader Marc Márquez. He narrowly preceded Danilo Petrucci, Fabio Quartararo and Takaaki Nakagami. Two laps later, while Marc Márquez, Andrea Dovizioso, Álex Rins and Jack Miller led the Grand Prix, Crutchlow overtook Pol Espargaró to take sixth place behind Valentino Rossi, 4.1 behind the leader.

The Englishman's progression continued and with thirteen laps remaining he overtook Valentino Rossi, moving into fifth position, 5.2 behind Marc Márquez. Crutchlow had chosen to start with a hard Michelin at the front and a soft one at the rear, a selection which proved judicious and allowed Cal to occupy fifth position alone, 6.5 behind Marquez with 5 laps to go. END. He crossed the finish line fifth at 6.007, which allowed him to double fabio quartararo for eighth position in the provisional ranking of the World Championship.

According to Cal Crutchlow, “ By the end of the first lap, or the first two or three anyway, I was already 3,8 seconds behind, so I lost a lot of time in the first few laps as I was unable to double”.

“Maybe I lost one lap too many behind (Danilo) Petrucci and Valentino (Rossi), but I did my best, I had a good pace and we are happy with the result considering our position on Grid ".

“I got off to a good start and had a good race, but I wore out this rear tire which justified the gap with the men in front. I was four seconds behind and got back to two at one point, but that put a lot of stress on the rear tire on a day when the track conditions were really bad.”

“Overall we are happy, the team did a good job, Honda did a good job and we should be happy to be in the top five for a poor performance after a poor qualifying and a good feeling with the bike this weekend ".

Grand Prix results:

Provisional ranking of the World Championship:

Video: Cal Crutchlow passes Valentino Rossi

Photos © LCR Honda