Crutchlow doesn't expect heavy running in Qatar

Testing in Qatar will begin today but Cal Crutchlow has told MCN that he will sit out the majority of the running due to the track conditions not being reflective of what we can expect when the MotoGP season opens in two weeks time. Track running will be from 4pm until 11pm but with Qatar’s night schedule on race weekend the benefits of running during the day are lessened considerably for teams.

“We’ve got some things that we want to try this week but we haven’t sat down yet as a team to work out the programme,” said Crutchlow. “We’ve got the same bike as at Sepang so we’ll assess the situation. We won’t be running a lot this week, probably only from seven til ten because the race is starts at nine o’clock. I’m looking forward to it though.”

Having joined LCR-Honda over the winter Crutchlow is finding his feet in the team and finding new ways to work with his crew having changed crew chiefs from Daniele Ramagnoli to Christophe “Beefy” Bourgignon.

“It’s a very different way of working compared to how I’ve worked in the past. I had Daniele as my crew chief at Tech3 and Ducati and Beefy works in a very different way but he understands the Honda very well. I think that we’re a little bit on the back foot with regards to staff because we need a data guy on our team. We just have an electronics engineer at the minute whereas everyone else has an electronics engineer and a data guy so we’ll look into that and assess the situation as and when it’s needed but for me that’s the only concern that I have with the team.”

As Crutchlow explains not having a data engineer is a definite handicap for Crutchlow, particularly as he tries to learn how to ride the Honda, but overall he was pleased with the work completed at both Malaysian tests:

“If we go out and try something different it’s not possible for us to download the data and immediately see the data like we would if we had a data guy. Now we have to wait until the evening to be able to see that because we have no-one to do it. Beefy tries to oversee the whole bike and the team and then we’ve got the electronics guy that looks after the power, the anti-wheelie and all the sensors on the bike but we have no one to read the data.

“The data is one of the most interesting things for you when you’re trying to learn the bike but we were fast enough in Malaysia, which is a track that I don’t like, and I was comfortable on the bike so hopefully here come the race weekend we’ll be quite strong. We need to make inroads into being fast enough but we’re close to where I think that we should be.”