Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow is more than pleased with his laptime in yesterday's MotoGP test at Estoril as it was faster than the works Honda of Dani Pedrosa managed in Sunday's race when he took victory ahead of reigning champ Jorge Lorenzo.

The former footballer set the fourth-fastest time of the session and managed to go into the 1'36s bracket, joining Marco Simoncelli, Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner. He was also faster than Valentino Rossi using a longer wheelbase in the Yamaha than he has in the past.

“Today was really positive and I can't really ask for much more than finishing fourth quickest with only three of the fastest riders in the world in front of me. I was able to lap nearly two seconds faster than I did in the race but I was quietly confident that the changes we planned to make for today would mean I could go a lot faster," said Crutchlow.

"Losing so much track time because of the weather at the weekend meant I couldn't risk taking a gamble on making too many changes for the race. I honestly didn't expect to break into the 36s but I felt comfortable and even with 25-laps on the same set of tyres I was doing low to mid-37s.

"I know everyone goes faster in a test but my time today was faster than Dani Pedrosa's best lap in the race and he won, so my pace bodes well for the future. We moved the handlebars and lengthened the wheelbase and I just felt much more comfortable. The bike was a lot easier to ride and much less aggressive and I was fast throughout the whole day.

"If I'd had this set-up for the race I'm sure I could have had a battle with Colin, and he was sixth, so that's really encouraging. I can't wait for Le Mans now. It is the home race for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team and today's result has given me a lot of confidence that I can be competitive again on another track I have to learn from scratch."