Cal Crutchlow will start Sunday’s German Grand Prix from the fifth row of the grid, having missed out on the chance to go for pole in the qualifying final by a tiny margin of five-hundredths of a second. The LCR Honda rider was frustrated to be even taking part in the qualifying repechage, after having got caught up behind a slower rider during the final free practice session, consigning him to the first qualifier. Despite setting the sixth fastest time of the two qualifying sessions combined, having finished outside of thetop two in Q1 he will now start from 13th place on the grid. Pace during those free practices this weekend suggests that Crutchlow should be higher up the grid, and considering his speed the Brit will be hopeful that he can make up positions quickly in the early laps to give himself the best shout of a good result, whatever the weather may be.

Cal Crutchlow:
“We should have been in Q2 directly really. In FP3 it looked like Bradl was just riding in the middle of the track, he made a mistake and came back on track in front of me and ruined my lap. Then we had a rear brake problem and I had to scrap the rest of my laps. I’m disappointed like you would not believe. I took a gamble along with the team that we would use an older front tyre during the qualifier, because we didn’t have enough new ones left in our allocation. We took the gamble because we needed it for Q2, simple as that. As we then saw, the laps there weren’t great and I would have been sixth with my Q1 time. I would say that I’m the fourth fastest guy out there, so to be 13th is just a joke. I’m not happy but there’s nothing I can do now other than get out there in the race tomorrow and go for it.”

 

Results Q1 + Q2 combined:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: motogp.com, lcr.mc