Crutchlow explains crash

Cal Crutchlow was punished for a small mistake at Le Mans with the Englishman crashing out of the French Grand Prix in the early stages. Crutchlow had been enjoying a strong weekend but, like the other Honda runners, he had a much more difficult race with the bike struggling badly on corner entry however this had nothing to do with his crash.

“I went down the hill and I always put my foot out when I’m braking,” explained Crutchlow. “I put it back on the peg as I went to the corner but my foot dropped off the rear brake and it went under the bike. As it did that I grabbed the front brake. It was a mistake on my part, I locked the front because I grabbed the brake so fast but I was already braking. The twitch literally [from his foot falling from the peg] just made me grab the front brake harder. I was disappointed that it was live on TV at the time but that’s the way it is!”

Given that Crutchlow had been running at the front of the field all weekend he was understandably disappointed to have crashed out of the race. However when asked about his disappointment of crashing from the race he commented that the biggest issue for him was how he was close to the pace of the top Honda riders rather than missing out on points for the first time this year.

“We’re really disappointed because we were really close to our ‘Factory’ guy,” said Cal. “Bradley did a good job but he was a long way from his ‘Factory’ guy. Iannone too but he was a long way from Dovi. Again we’ve been pleased with our race weekend. I would have been pleased with a result to finish the race in fourth. We’d definitely have been in that battle with Marc, Iannone and Bradley. But I wasn’t. No excuses. Things happened and I crashed the bike.”