LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow confessed following today’s opening free practice session of the 2017 season that he wasn’t riding at his best as a result of an early mechanical problem.
The British rider’s RC213V unleashed a cloud of smoke and a dribble of oil at the start of the 45-minute session, forcing him to pull off at Turn 1 and steal a photographer’s scooter to get back to pit lane.
Crutchlow made it back out not too long after his early dramas, but the incident left him spooked and threw him off his game for the remainder of the session.
“I nearly high-sided going into Turn 1, at f****** 330km/h,” he told motorsport news website Autosport.com.
“Honestly, for the rest of the session, I rode like s***, really scared, really s***.
“If you crash, and you know you’ve crashed, then you say, ‘OK, I crashed a lap ago, I’m on my spare bike, I can go faster because I know I crashed.
“With that (a mechanical issue), and it’s not in your control, you’re s******* yourself the whole time.”
The Briton had to complete the rest of the session on his second bike, which had a vastly different set-up to anything he had tried during the pre-season.
Despite this, and not riding to his full capability, Crutchlow still dragged his Honda around the 5.4km Losail International Circuit to a 1m55.639s towards the end of the session to go seventh fastest, which he was satisfied with.
“OK, I was riding bad, but the lap time was not too bad considering and I was on a bike we’d never ridden before, setting-wise,” he added.
“It was just going to be doing two laps today and I ended up doing the whole session.”
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