Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow suffered an ignominous end to his Motegi MotoGP race, running out of fuel on the last lap while challenging Alvaro Bautista for the final podium spot.

Determined to score his second rostrum finish of the 2012 World Championship campaign, Crutchlow was just preparing his attack on the final lap when his YZR-M1 machine sputtered as he entered turn three. The Briton's misfortune moved team-mate Andrea Dovizioso into fourth position after he had fought his way through from outside of the top six in the early stages.

“All I can do after the way the race finished is take the positives from this weekend and there are a lot. This isn't a good track for me and I was struggling on Friday, yet I managed to get on the front row of the grid again and for the whole race I was fighting for the podium," said Crutchlow.

"The improvements we made from Friday were massive and I am proud of the job that my crew and myself did this weekend. But there is no denying that I am disappointed as well because I was confident I could have passed Alvaro on the last lap. It wouldn't have been easy because he was riding very well and it was a very enjoyable battle with him. I had a lot of fun and I'm sure he did too and it is just unfortunate that we couldn't take the fight right to the very end.

"Even fourth would have been good for my hopes of finishing fifth in the Championship but I lost a lot of points today. We knew fuel consumption was going to be critical. I was very fast and for almost the whole race I was on my own with no slipstream, so I used more fuel. I've proven again though that I can fight with the best in the world and now I'm looking forward to Sepang. I had two good tests there earlier this year and I'm excited to go back and try to battle for the top three again.”