Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow is concentrating on making his performance at the end of tomorrow's season-opening MotoGP race at Qatar as strong as possible as he knows he can run a fast pace at the start.
The former World Supersport Champion is looking for a bit more pace from his satellite YZR-M1, even though he was second-fastest in the final free practice session, and thinks it will come from some tweaks to corner entry and braking performance.
"We went the wrong way with the bike. We made two changes and went with a longer second gear, and changed the chassis, and then in every second-gear corner, I couldn't stop, so we went back with the chassis, and I still couldn't stop so we have got some changes to make," said Crutchlow, speaking to bikesportnews.com at Losail.
"Everyone put in a new tyre in FP2 and I didn't and we were still eighth. There's a big gain to found from a soft tyre. On the hard tyre, I think we're not too bad. Tyre wear is a problem on corner entry, which is where lap time is gained in MotoGP. Now we're sliding around so much, we look more like Moto2. But it's our own fault. We complained the tyres didn't warm up fast enough last year and they changed them. Now we're complaining the tyres are sliding around too much.
"We got what we wanted, and now everyone wants to change! The tyres are definitely better. Duration is not too bad. They go off straight away, but you seem to keep the same lap time. But corner entry gets worse, when you shut off, they come round on you, so you break earlier and corner speed gets lower lap after lap. It will be the guy who has the best tire at the end of the race, but that's what everyone wants to see.
"I want to finish the race as strong as possible, so I'm working on the end of the race. I know we've got enough speed at the beginning of the race, but you've got to be careful, you can blitz a tyre in a couple of laps. Over the winter, I think we've been pretty consistent, we've been using old tyres all the time, and maybe it suits me a little bit from the Pirellis (in WSBK). Maybe these guys are too used to going in a straight line with the Bridgestones and the electronics. Maybe I'm a used to sliding around."
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