Cal Crutchlow has withdrawn from his planned wildcard at the British MotoGP, opening the door to Remy Gardner.
Crutchlow was originally to ride at the MotoGP Italian Grand Prix in June, but had to pull ut after surgery to a hand injury. Complications from that surgery have lengthened Crutchlow's recovery time, meaning he will not ride in Britain next month.
“Unfortunately, I am unable to attend my wildcard appearance at the British GP at Silverstone this year," Crutchlow said on the announcement of his British GP withdrawal. "I had surgery on my hand two months ago, and the recovery has not gone as expected at all, leading to a further surgery and complications.
“It is important to let my hand heal fully before trying to ride the MotoGP bike. I look forward to coming back and riding with my Yamaha Factory Racing MotoGP Test Team as soon as I can and continue our project to improve the current and next year’s package for the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team.
“This year we have seen some improvement already thanks to endless work from everyone at Yamaha and the team. I hope to watch an exciting British GP this year and that everyone has a great weekend!”
At the British Grand Prix, Crutchlow will be replaced by Remy Gardner, who obtained recent race experience for Yamaha at the MotoGP German Grand Prix, where he replaced Alex Rins following the latter's MotoGP Dutch TT high-side and resultant broken leg.
Ahead of his British Grand Prix wildcard, Gardner said: “First of all, I just want to say that I hope that Cal can get better soon. I saw him last week, and I hope he can get back to riding and help the MotoGP project along.
“Obviously, it’s a nice opportunity to get to ride the M1 again, so I’m really happy. Silverstone is a track I like, and hopefully I can give some more important feedback to Yamaha and the team and continue to enjoy the moment. Thanks to everyone at Yamaha, and I’m looking forward to riding again.”
Yamaha's keenness to maintain a third bike on the grid at Silverstone is motivated by a desire to generate as much data as possible during the race weekend. While it expects Alex Rins will be fit in time to return to action at Silverstone, Yamaha's regular factory line-up of Rins and Fabio Quartararo still puts it at a two-bike disadvantage to the rest of the MotoGP manufacturers, excepting Ducati which has a six-bike advantage on Yamaha and four-bike advantage on everyone else. For a manufacturer that is trying to gain competitiveness at the fastest possible rate, the more data it can generate should mean a faster development rate. As a result, if Crutchlow is unavailable for his previously planned San Marino Grand Prix wildcard, it would seem likely that he would be replaced in Misano, although not by Gardner who will be racing for GRT Yamaha at the WorldSBK French Round that weekend.
