Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow decided discretion was the better part of valour in today's Assen MotoGP race when his front Bridgestone fell apart after just five lap, forcing him to pit instead of risking another crash and damaging his collarbone further.

The MotoGP rookie was in a dice for fourth with personal hero Valentino Rossi but began to lose grip so instead of trying to stay with the nine-times world champion he came in to change the offending article. Team mate Colin Edwards suffered the same fate (pictured below).

“Looking at the positives I got a fantastic start and for the first few laps I was running close to the front in a MotoGP race for the first time. I felt confident I could keep Valentino behind me but then after about five or six laps I started struggling with the front tyre on the right side," said Crutchlow.

"I had no choice but to come in and change it because if I had carried on pushing it was going to be easy to crash and that's the last thing I need to be doing at the moment. Having only had surgery on my left collarbone just over a week ago I just couldn't afford to have another crash.

"Without that I've no doubt I'd have finished fourth but I've proved again I've got the speed and shown that I can race with the best in this class. It wasn't the final result we wanted but I can't change it and I still learned a lot, so now I'm concentrating on Mugello and getting a good result there.”