MotoGP Qatar: 'Fifth was possible' believes Crutchlow

Britain’s Cal Crutchlow mustered a seventh-place finish on his RC213V debut in yesterday’s Qatar MotoGP but believes a fourth or fifth would have been possible had it not been for grip issues suffered by all the Hondas.

Crutchlow finished five seconds behind reigning champion Marc Marquez and one behind Dani Pedrosa - who has a case of arm pump so bad he is considering his future in the sport - but says he made some errors and didn’t help himself.

“I think to come away with a seventh place we can be very happy. It was a good start to the season considering I don’t have any experience racing the Honda. The guys I was battling with have been riding a factory Honda for a lot longer than me, and we all saw that they struggled too. Being just over a second behind Dani Pedrosa and five behind Marc Marquez shows that we were all struggling for rear grip tonight in Qatar,” said Crutchlow.

“I think this was about our pace for the weekend anyway, and I made it hard for myself with some mistakes early on in the race, but my pace was consistently good. If I had have got away with the guys in front I could possibly have been around fourth or fifth.

“For Austin we have to improve, take our comments from this race and see what we can achieve there. It’s going to be difficult to challenge the guys at the front there, but it’s a learning curve for us. I don’t think we’ve done a bad job at all, and we come away happy.”