Cal Crutchlow expected to come sixth at Austin’s MotoGP round, saying he couldn’t expect to realistically challenge the riders that had spent at least two days’ testing at the Teas track in March and said after qualifying that ‘no Yamaha was going to win’ at Circuit of the Americas’.

Even though his second prediction came true, the Monster Yamaha man rode his heart out to take fourth place from his second row grid slot – coming back from an off-track excursion where his frustration at the corner exit grunt displayed by Stefan Bradl’s LCR Honda saw a dive up the inside go wrong.

But he re-grouped and then passed the German at place where no-one had overtaken all weekend, going underneath through turn two and rode away. Not bad for a rider whose garage caught fire on Wednesday night, leaving the team with a lack of laptops and servers – vital in this arena.

"It was close. We have had such limited resources with the fire on Wednesday. We were on the back foot from not having three days testing here but I think we should be proud and we can go into the next race with more confidence,” said Crutchlow.

“I’m very pleased and we did a better job than any of us expected before we arrived in Texas. With no testing here I was worried that it would be more of a so to finish fourth and be behind Marquez, Pedrosa and Lorenzo is a great achievement for all of us. We qualified well and I rode very well in the race and the most pleasing aspect was my consistency.

“I ran wide while trying to pass Bradl but I managed to fight my way back through and I was running the same speed as Lorenzo for a long time and that gives me a lot of confidence to take into the next few races. I’m giving it my all and I’ll never give up and I think this weekend again we showed how competitive the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 package is. Now we go to Jerez and I was quickest at the winter test a few weeks ago, so it is going to be another big battle.”