TOUGH SECOND DAY FOR CRUTCHLOW IN QATAR

With practices starting a day early at the opening GP of the 2016 season, Friday evening saw the second and third free practice sessions take place under the floodlights of the Losail International Circuit in Qatar.
Cal Crutchlow ended the day in 15th position overall, and was still suffering with the same corner-entry problems that have plagued him throughout the pre-season testing programme. Working tirelessly with his LCR Honda Team, the British rider tried a variety of different solutions to the issues, but with little success, the culmination of his frustration being a lowside crash in FP2.
Crutchlow and his crew will crunch the data overnight to try and find a solution to the problems, and the hope is that they can find improvements in the fourth free practice. That half-hour session will be of vital importance to his race, before the 30 year-old then takes part in the Qualifying 1 shootout, aiming to take a top-two spot that would see him through to the battle for the front grid positions as expected.

#35 Cal Crutchlow – 15th (1’55.946)

“It was a tough day really. I just don’t have feeling with the front of the bike and I can’t turn into the corner without problems with the engine brake, a bit similar to yesterday. I was positive that we would be able to fix it, but I’m still having a lot of vibration with both of the tyres for some reason. Braking early and trying to carry corner speed is impossible, which is what you need to be doing with the Michelins.”
“We have some sort of problem at the moment, but we have no idea what it is. We know the factory team changed something that we’re not able to change and it seems that they are going better. We went back to the settings we had at the test and the problems are still there. I’ve not got too much to say, other than as soon as I push it’s impossible to go fast.”
“We have to look tonight and try and figure it out, you don’t have time to do these things during the session. The problem now is we have to go through Q1… but we’ve been there before, so let’s see.”