Monster Yamaha Tech3’s Cal Crutchlow ends rookie season in fourth place at Valencia – MotoGP news
Monster Yamaha Tech3 rider Cal Crutchlow rounded off his MotoGP rookie season in an appreciable way at Valencia, Spain.
The sole British rider in premier class made a stunning finish in fourth place after overtaking Dani Pedrosa of Honda in the last few laps.
Crutchlow said, “That was a pretty dramatic way to finish the season and I am obviously thrilled to win the Rookie of the Year title. But I'm equally happy to have finished in fourth place because that was an incredibly difficult race.”
The Brit scored 11th position on the grid and spent majority of the race battling with Karel Abraham of Cardion AB.
Crutchlow tweaked a setup that worked better in the wet conditions. During the second free practice session, he was able to jump up in the time sheet to the fifth place.
While coming to the final free practice session he was 13th in the final timesheet for practice.
The majority of the race was led by Casey Stoner of Repsol Honda. As the rain hit the Ricardo Tormo circuit, the race scene was changed and the Yamahas got strong in wet conditions.
In the front rider’s pack, Ben Spies of factory Yamaha team throttled up to hunt Repsol Honda trio. Gradually, Crutchlow took risk and overtook Pedrosa to take the fourth place across the finish line.
The British MotoGP rookie added, “I'm not sure what happened at the first corner but I came out of it in sixth place and just pushed as hard as I could. It was a really intense battle with Karel right to the end and both of us were giving it everything we
had.”
Although the track got slippery and greasy after the rain but he still managed to keep up his pace. The Brit consistently pushed with precautions to avoid crashing.
The Hondas started to suffer during the wet conditions. The most suffered Honda rider was Pedrosa who started to lose pace and lost his position to Crutchlow in the final few laps.
Colin Edwards being under recovery missed the season finale. He was replaced by AMA rider Josh Hayes. The American rider took a great step in learning the track and a MotoGP prototype.
Tags: