Maintatining tyre life key for Crutchlow

Despite a second row start Cal Crutchlow felt that he had made mistakes on his fastest lap and that he had left time on the track in Valencia. The Englishman complained yesterday that the front tyre allocations for Valencia were holding back the Honda riders and that the problem has been exaggerated by the higher track temperatures this weekend.

“I was happy enough but honestly, I made too many mistakes on my lap,” admitted Crutchlow. “I was following Marc and I lost four tenths in turn two by going completely out of the track and back in so that would have put me a place higher up, but maybe not a row. We still have the issue with the front tyre, it’s too soft.

“It’s too soft for me and Marc, also Dovi, I think and a few of the guys – more the bigger guys and the guys who brake hard into corners. Lorenzo and the Suzuki of Vinales aren’t struggling so much whereas Aleix is. It seems the bigger guys are overloading the tyre trying to brake with some angle. It seems a little better today but not what we need, we need to be stronger. It’s going to be a long 30 laps tomorrow sliding around from lap five or six but we’ll see.

“It was a little more slippery today. It’s amazing what times you can do with used tyres in the morning, even with the softer front tyre like the 35, the asymmetric, you don’t really think you can do the lap times but it comes quite easily but in the afternoon it’s a lot more difficult. When you’re pushing it’s greasy.”

Crutchlow commented that the issue of the tyre allocations had been brought up at the Safety Commission meeting but that nothing would be changed for this weekend as Bridgestone did not have enough tyres on site to allow everyone to receive extra tyres. The issues with the tyres are twofold for Crutchlow. The tyre is too soft and leads to overheating and as a result there is a big dropoff in performance after only a couple of laps.

“There’s a big drop in the tyre after two laps but we’ve got 28 laps left! This is Valencia and the head in the left hand side of the tyre is a lot, it seems that you can go fast and then it drops but then you can also stay the same. I expect the lap time to drop after five laps or so and then stay the same for the next twenty, I hope!”