MotoGP: Crutchlow lucky to escape Sepang relatively unscathed

Cal Crutchlow has been lucky to walk away from the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend relatively unscathed despite a series on high-speed crashes in practice, qualifying and Sunday’s race that left the LCR Honda rider battered and bruised.

First crashing out of Saturday’s free practice three and breaking a bone in his left hand after sliding into a kerb, he then highsided himself in Sunday’s race, faceplanting the ground and leaving himself dazed and dizzy.

“I’m a little bit sore after what was a big crash. It wasn’t fast, in fact it was quite slow but I highsided off throttle. Marc almost had the same the lap before but he managed to stay on – he had the luck of landing back on the bike. I thought ‘don’t do what Marc did’, but I nearly ended up on the moon! I landed completely on my face and was a bit disorientated, but then was OK. I have some pain in my big toe and my foot, and in my hand which is broken from the qualifying crash. It was impossible to ride the bike again.”

And to make matters worse, he believed that the crash in the race cost him a chance at continuing an excellent streak of form and potentially denying himself another podium finish.

“It was a shame because it was a definite podium opportunity, but I was struggling with the acceleration. We need how to improve the traction control works because we just weren’t competitive enough in this area, and myself and Marc had to brake ‘hot’ all the time to make up for this. I tried my best and it didn’t work this time, but I’m most disappointed for my team because to spend the week here and get any points is a real shame. We go away happy enough because of recent results but we had to try today, and we did.”