MotoGP: Crutchlow lucky to escape unscathed

Cal Crutchlow has admitted that he was lucky to come away from the San Marino Grand Prix not only uninjured but with three championship points, after crashing out of the race only days after undergoing surgery on his left index finger.

The British racer severed a tendon in his hand while cutting cheese prior to the weekend’s action, necessitating not only an operation to repair it but also a special splint to keep the finger straight for a month until the damaged tendon repairs.

Yet despite that and crashing out of the race then remounting to finish 13^th, he says that he can be pleased to come away unscathed when it would have been very easy to have been injured in Misano’s torrential rain.

“I hit it on the floor and it was a little sore when I got back up, but I knew I had to get back on the bike – and I rode the rest of the race with no footrest and a handlebar that was touching the tank. But once I started to feel OK I was able to push and I was doing the same lap times as Viñales – but by then it was far too late.

“I recovered well and I did what I could do for the rest of the race after that considering our problems. The issue was that I couldn’t brake properly because I couldn’t use the foot peg to brake and I couldn’t use the handlebar to brake. But I did some fast lap times towards the end of the race and at least I managed to get some points.”

Yet despite riding injured all weekend, he also says that once he got the start out of the way, the RC213V’s seamless gearbox means that he didn’t need to worry about not being able to use the splinted finger to clutch.

“I baulked the start a little bit, but I was quite comfortable with where I ended up off the line. My hand took a whack when I landed, but I was lucky I had the splint on as it stopped it getting more injured, and hopefully it’ll be more healed up in Aragon.”