Cal Crutchlow managed to return to the sharp end of the MotoGP world championship for the first time this season in yesterday’s qualifying at Le Mans for the French Grand Prix.
The LCR Honda rider gave his best showing of the year by qualifying fourth and missing out on the front row of the grid by a mere tenth of a second.
It comes as a welcome relief in a disastrous year that all started to go wrong when he crashed during warm-up for the opening race at Jerez, suffering a concussion and a break to his wrist that required surgery, meaning he missed the first round.
Further complications from routine arm pump surgery made him miss additional races at Misano as he slowly recovered and he then bizarrely fell while leaving the COVID-19 testing area at Barcelona.
Overall, he’s been far from full fitness throughout the first eight rounds.
His awful season has been mirrored by an equally terrible year so far for Honda, simply unable to be competitive with Crutchlow hampered and reigning world champion Marc Marquez out due to injuries of his own.
They’re the only riders in recent years able to get the best out of an aggressive and physically-demanding RC213V – an issue that seems to have been exacerbated by the 2020 updates.
The sole rider flying the Honda flag competitively so far this year has been Crutchlow’s team-mate Taka Nakagami.
But with low temperatures and good grip from the recently-resurfaced short circuit at Le Mans, Crutchlow not only finished qualifying strongly but believes he could have gone even better if it hadn’t been for a few mistakes.
“I actually made a few mistakes in my lap. I had a marker – Valentino [Rossi] was ahead of me but maybe by two seconds, and I knew I was on a good lap,” he said.
“I didn’t want to blow it in Turn 6 or 7 by making a mistake so I braked too early for both of them.
“Then in Turn 9 [Danilo] Petrucci pulled across the track in my braking zone, and I lost the front row there.
“But I put a good lap together. My last sector in my out-lap was faster than my last sector on my fast lap, so it could have been better but I felt good and I was able to push.
“Like I’ve always said, when I feel good with the bike and with my arm and I’m able to push – I’ll push.”
So where did the sudden increase in pace come from? Was it just Crutchlow’s fitness?
The British rider reckons this performance is something that’s been there all year in the bike, but Honda’s not been able to showcase thanks to a combination of track surfaces, weather conditions and his own collection of injuries.
While Honda’s also been struggling at some tracks with Michelin’s new grippy rear tyre on corner entry (although not to the same extent it has hampered rival Ducati), it seems that Le Mans offers the perfect balance for it to finally go fast.
“If you see the two racetracks that have had good grip, here and Misano, we’ve really felt the benefit,” Crutchlow added.
“Our bike doesn’t have the best rear grip, but we’ve been able to feel the benefit here.
“When the track is cold and quite tricky a lot of the other manufacturers and riders struggle with the rear end sliding around quite a bit too, but we’re so used to it because it’s always like that.
“I think Misano, on the Friday that I did do and for Alex [Marquez] and Taka in the second race, showed that.”
Nakagami didn’t have as successful a qualifying session as Crutchlow at Le Mans, lining up for the race on the fifth row.
But, complaining of the issues that Crutchlow has cured and with an ace in the hole in the form of his team-mate’s data to work with ahead of the race, he’s quietly confident that he can make a step forward when the lights go out.
“We’ve been struggling to find the balance of the bike; I can’t stop well and I don’t feel much edge grip from the tyre,” he said.
“I couldn’t use the rear to turn the bike. We’ve been trying to change that and it was better in FP4, especially with the used tyre.
“We need to modify some small details a little bit more, but we can’t change too much because it’s easy to lose the way in these tricky conditions.
“I want to check the data and compare with Cal because he’s definitely faster than me this weekend.”
