Britain’s Cal Crutchlow has revealed that he is unable to match the degrees of lean angle generated by the other Ducati MotoGP riders despite riding on the absolute limit and his team have not yet come up with reason why.
The Isle of Man resident says that the problem is currently a complete mystery and that if he tries to match the angle used by Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone, he will crash - but last year he was within one degree of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi.
Crutchlow admits that he is weak in the areas where the Ducati is strong so doesn’t gain anything over the course of a lap and added that he has never ridden so hard for no apparent gains.
“I’ve never ridden a bike so hard in all my career to get no results. I think it is clear that I am not saying anything that is unreasonable but there have been seven or eight guys with different riding styles and the result is normally the same in the first year,” said Crutchlow, speaking at the track.
“If I look at the laptimes of the guys who come to Ducati in their first year at the circuit, we are better than all of them but the competition is so high in MotoGP, it makes us look average and too far away. In the second year, they make a massive improvement and take a second off the top four but for no real reason.
“Maybe it’s just time on the bike and we have to accept the situation. If I look at some circuits this year, I have been faster on the Ducati than I have been on another bike, it’s difficult to say but everyone is going faster. The bike, at the moment, does not suit my style and we will see if we can try and change it as much as possible. There is no short fix for this.
“There are a lot of unexplained things in the data so we are puzzled a little as to why but we are working hard. I’m not saying this is the limit and that’s it, we are trying in every session of every race to improve the situation.
“We have one big thing we can’t explain and that is the lean angle of me on the bike. Dovi and Iannone have four to five degrees more than me in every single corner and we don’t know why. We are at the limit, and we can see we are at the limit, with four of five degrees less angle, which means you shouldn’t be at the limit.
“They are at the limit with their angle, I can’t lean the bike over anymore or I will be on the floor. And that has been the case for every single corner of every lap so far this year. Last year, I was one degree less than Lorenzo and one more than Valentino in most corners. We are looking for answers but we have researched it so much.
“The bike at the moment is strong in the braking area and strong in a straightline, the two areas I have never been good. Aerodynamically, I’m not the best and in braking I brake weak and try to carry the corner speed but when you have the understeer, the wheelie and no grip you gain nothing. I gain nowhere in the whole circuit.
“I hope the bike Gigi is building is going to be competitive, not only for me but for other riders as well as we want to see Ducati battling at the front, they deserve to be at the front challenging.”
When asked about his options for next year and whether moving to a Suzuki which was a long way off the pace during testing at Barcelona, was such a hot idea he said he is only thinking about the next race, not next year.
“In all honesty, thinking about options for next year, I have no other thought than racing right now. It makes zero difference what is on or off the table, my priority is to be at the front with Ducati and I have never had any other motive, I think we are here, we are in it together. My plan is to come and win,” he said.
“I haven’t said anything about going anywhere else and Ducati have not announced anything that I am doing anything otherwise so we are looking to the future. I’m not interested in any other manufacturer at the moment, I don’t care, we are focusing on ourselves and we have to improve before looking elsewhere.”
