WithU Yamaha RNF’s Cal Crutchlow will line up for his first MotoGP race in 12 months from 19th on the Motorland Aragon grid.

Having suffered his own crash during the morning’s free practice three, Crutchlow’s final hot-lap effort in the opening qualifying session was in turn derailed by yellow flags. His ultimate 1’47.541 best, set on his second lap of the 15-minute session, placing him at the head of row seven, with Monster Energy Yamaha’s Franky Morbidelli and Tech3 KMT’s Raul Fernandez for company.

“Today was not a bad day,” Crutchlow said from the Aragon paddock. “I feel we improved my pace a little bit, but unfortunately, we didn’t take advantage of that in FP3 or qualifying today. We had a little bit of an issue that held us back to be able to really make a lap time.

“The good thing is the potential was higher, but again, it was nice to be out there. I felt myself a little bit more competitive today, which was good fun.

“Obviously, with having six races, I need to get myself in the frame of mind to push and have a bit of competitiveness in me. Unfortunately, I crashed at the end of FP3, but we completely understand why.

“We’ll look forward to try to improve the bike for tomorrow’s race because as of yet we haven’t touched one setting of the bike. It has been the same in every session, which was our plan. We changed the electronics quite a lot over the sessions and this was why we didn’t touch the bike yet. Hopefully tonight we can improve for tomorrow.”