Cal Crutchlow targets top five after worst qualifying

Cal Crutchlow has targeted a return to the top five in tomorrow’s Motorland Aragon MotoGP clash after he slumped to his worst qualifying of 2013 in Spain this afternoon.

A series of mistakes on his fast laps in QP2 left the 27-year-old down in seventh position on the grid with a personal best time of 1.48.653.

Crutchlow also blamed himself for selecting the wrong set-up of two available on his YZR-M1 machinery this afternoon and today was the first time all season that he has failed to qualify inside the top five.

The former World Supersport champion said: “It was a bad day being my worst qualifying of the year. It was my own fault because I made more than one mistake on every single one of my fast laps. I need to improve my pace and without any mistakes I am sure I could have been in the 47s.

“I am still losing a lot of speed on the straight and even to Bradley (Smith) now I am an average of 8kph down. And I am losing 0.3s is one straight to Jorge (Lorenzo) and he is probably losing 0.1s to the Honda.

“But my bike is running full power and I can’t go any faster. I am at full power and I am not going anywhere. In qualifying I chose the wrong bike out of the two that were available and I chose the wrong front tyre for my riding style.

“I saw Jorge and Valentino (Rossi) used the soft as well and for their bike setting it worked quite well but for me it didn’t. In three laps I missed running off the track by an inch and I just kept out-braking myself.

“The laps just never came together and trying to make up time after out-braking myself I would just do it again. That is not usually like me because normally I can put fast laps together when I need to.

“I think seventh will be a long way ahead of eighth but it is how far seventh will be from the podium. It will be a difficult race but we definitely need to improve the bike and be 0.5s faster in the race. I will be happy with the top five and have a battle. I don’t want a boring race.”