Cal Crutchlow caused the surprise in FP2 of the Malaysian Grand Prix. The British rider, who responded to Yamaha’s call when Andrea Dovizioso announced his retirement at the end of the San Marino Grand Prix, has emerged as the brand’s second reference rider, and took advantage of the delicate weather conditions to set the fastest time of the second trial.
“Now I can go home happy with the job done,” Cal joked at the end of the session. However, far from scoring goals, the Englishman acknowledged that training was “totally irrelevant”. The track was in mixed conditions, after a major downpour fell in the previous Moto2 training session; conditions in which the M1 does not finish performing well.
“The bike just doesn’t work in such slippery conditions. There wasn’t enough water on the track, and we kept sliding. Basically, we had exactly the same thing happening to us as in the dry, but twice as much; you can hardly open the throttle. That’s why ‘Franky ‘ [Morbidelli] did so well at the beginning,” he said.
“As soon as the track started to dry, I said I could put myself in the front positions, because I’ve always been good at these mixed conditions. But when there wasn’t enough water on the track, the Yamaha didn’t work. You can’t accelerate out of the curves”.
Towards the end of the test, Cal took the risk and went out on the track with slick tires , which allowed him to improve his times, although he lapped “five seconds slower” than he “should”.
Although in practice that first place does not help much, it does suppose a moral boost for the RNF satellite structure , which runs this weekend at home. “The team was obviously happy,” Crutchlow said. “It’s okay, because it’s like a little reward after a tough year.”
His record will not be worth it to have a direct pass to Q2 either, since the times of the morning, disputed in the dry, were not improved. Thus, Cal occupies 18th place in the combined classification, in the absence of an FP3 that, possibly, will be in the wet again.
“It’s a shame I didn’t get through to Q2, because if it rains again at night it’s going to be another difficult Q1. It looks like qualifying will be wet, and it’s difficult to do it in those conditions,” he concluded. the #35.
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