Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow says he is under no extra pressure to finish in front of the Repsol Hondas in Saturday's Assen MotoGP race after the misfortune of reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo.
The works Yamaha man broke his collarbone in a free practice two crash, falling at 200km/h at the right-hand Hog Heide corner and will fly to Barcelona for an operation in the morning. Crutchlow says there won't be any more expected of him to try and minimise the points Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez may take off the Spaniard in his absence.
"I will be doing my own job which is to ride for our team and my job is to finish as high up as I can. My job is to also beat the factory Yamahas so if I have a chance, I am going to try and beat Jorge anyway. It changes my position not one bit, makes no difference at all," said Crutchlow, speaking at Assen.
"It's unfortunate it has happened to Jorge as he was going to be the man to beat again, for sure. I'm pleased in a way it's only a broken collarbone because it could have been a lot worse, especially how fast that part of the track is."
