Britain’s Cal Crutchlow has revealed he didn’t show his true pace over the Silverstone MotoGP weekend until race day and it caught out plenty of people including nine-time champion Valentino Rossi, who admitted to being ‘surprised’.

Crutchlow was at the sharp end all weekend and set pole with an heroic lap in abysmal conditions but admitted after the race he had been keeping his outright speed a secret until the lights went out - but it wasn’t easy as his LCR Honda was proving difficult one again.

“I kept a little bit in the pocket. I know I did. I knew all weekend that I had something a little bit more than what I was giving out. That’s why Vale said he didn’t expect me to be there. But I knew what sort of pace I had. I actually believed, once I got to the front of that group I was going to go for Maverick,” said Crutchlow at the track.

“To finish second is great. I controlled it in the end. I knew I had enough. I knew that even when I was in that battle I could finish second, because when Iannone came past he was holding me up. When Marc was in front of me he wasn’t doing anything special.

“With about three laps to go when I was in second place I thought, ‘just f**king stay on, and my bike was not feeling great at that time. I couldn’t change direction. The bike just got worse and worse and worse to change direction. It was really hard from Turns 2-3-4-5 and 11-12.

“There was one point in the race where I thought, ‘I’m going down or I’m going on the podium’. But then I felt like I was able to control the situation. But the point that I thought that was where I was over the limit a tiny bit. Then I started to feel good with the bike and made it happen.”

“For me Cal was a little bit of a surprise,” said Rossi. “I expect him to be fast but not like this.”