Silverstone boss Stuart Pringle must have had a near-heartie at the sight of Cal Crutchlow bouncing down the track at Le Mans.

Only days earlier the tough of the track, and world championship contender, had been the main attraction at a press day lauding the newly resurfaced circuit and claiming it could knock over a second off the lap times.

Not only doing cartwheels at 100mph but being carted away on a stretcher. But Pringle needn’t have worried. Crutchlow really is a toughie. He bounced back to finish eighth at the French circuit as other contenders, Zarco and Dovisioso binned it, and is still well up In the championship table with the capability of winning a round if not the title.

Perhaps even more importantly than that, as Pringle has been banking on Crutchlow to bring in big crowds for the Silverstone MotoGP, was the world wide exposure given to the spectacular prang.
Motor cycle racing, even MotoGP, barely gets other than a cursory mention in national media including main news bulletins on tv.

The footage of the crash was so spectacular that it could not be ignored to the point that even presenters sitting in comfort on their breakfast TV sofa were 'ooing' and 'aahing', describing it as amazing. Indeed it was.As a publicity stunt this is not to be recommended but not since the Rossi/Marquez spat has the man in the street been talking about motorbike racing.

So a positive double whammy for Silverstone in the hope that the adventurous Crutchlow, three-time MotoGP winner, will not do it again. But if he does, which is certainly possible as this series should be renamed MotoCF (MotoCrashFest), and remains capable of winning his home Grand Prix then more TV footage of him either on or off the bike would be welcomed by the organisers.

There were, according to BT commentators,  an unbelievable 100 ‘offs’ in both  racing and practice across all classes at Le Mans. And BBC Breakfast on Monday gave viewers another spectacular dose from Moto3 when Bastianini crashed and Kornfiel did a motocross-style jump across the fallen machine into the gravel.

It is a marketeers dream.