Britain’s Cal Crutchlow bagged a second-row grid position for tomorrow’s Assen MotoGP and says he took advantage of the mixed conditions during qualifying two to end the session in fifth after having to again move through qualifying one.
The Ducati rider hung back a little from the main group of leaders who were encountering the damp surface conditions first but then got his own hammer down and moved into fifth while the likes of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi dithered too long.
“We qualified on the second row of a grand prix with the Ducati. I took advantage of the situation to get us there but at the end of the day, it was a wishful lap. I didn’t push so hard on that lap and I wondered what they were doing going so slow,” said Crutchlow, speaking at the track.
“The conditions were damp but they were taking it a bit too cautious for me, I didn’t and I ended up fifth. It wasn’t that bad and I wondered why they were going that slowly. It showed because Aleix was a couple of seconds behind us and he took 1.5s out of us in the one lap.
“He could see the guys in front of him were not having moments and could see the grip and took the pole. Whoever went to the front was scared to push and I took advantage. The reality is if you look at race pace we are about 20th. I would say free practice four today was probably the worst session I have had on the Ducati this year.
“There was no feeling with the bike, no rear grip and so much understeer on a bike we thought was going to be better, so that was disappointing to not gain anything and just go slower and slower, and a lot slower than we were yesterday.
“But when you look, I went nearly as fast today with the Ducati as I did last year, it’s just everyone else is much faster. I did a 1’34.5 and last year a 1’34.3 for the pole, which is too tenths over the whole lap. Don’t ask me how but they did.
“I got through qualifying one with a good lap, which is uncharacteristic as today it seemed we were able to go ok over one lap. We need to go in the other direction tomorrow and see if we can be competitive. If warm-up is dry we can try some things, if not we will gamble completely.”
