Cal Crutchlow eventually finished the San Marino and Rimini Riviera Grand Prix in eighth place and top independent team rider after a hard fought battle under the searing Italian sun.

After starting from the third row of the grid in seventh, the LCR Honda rider had spent much of the race in the same position whilst scrapping with the factory Ducati of Michele Pirro. Having lost out to the Italian right at the end of the race, Crutchlow was initially dealt a blow when he was given a 1.5 second penalty, which would relegate him to ninth.

This decision came after the FIM MotoGP Stewards saw that the Briton, who was suffering with visor problems, had transgressed the bounds of the track at turn one on five occasions. Having gained an advantage in the first sector on three of those laps, the subsequent penalty was applied and the results were revised, demoting him to ninth.

Subsequently, Dorna Timekeeping advised the Stewards of differences in the sector times which were not evident at the time the penalty was made. The Stewards requested on-board data from the LCR Honda Team for further analysis, and upon studying this extra data as well as video evidence it was discovered that Crutchlow had deliberately slowed through the second sector of the track in order to give back the time gained. As a result, it was decided that the initial penalty would be revoked, and Cal would be reinstated back to eighth place.

With another eight points added to his account, the British rider remains in eighth place in the MotoGP World Championship, and is still the top independent team rider in the standings.

The next round of the championship sees the LCR Honda Team travel to north-eastern Spain for the Grand Prix of Aragon which takes place on the weekend of September 23-25.

#35 Cal Crutchlow – 8th

“Today I think I did the best job possible and we worked well together as a team all weekend to be competitive. In the race I had some problems with the visor in my helmet because drips of sweat got onto it on about lap eight and it affected my vision for the last 20 laps. There was also a bit of a struggle with the front tyre which was really difficult to ride with here and didn’t suit the setting or my style. I gave my best as always and could easily have been a different result if things had gone for us.”

“I ran off the track five times into turn one due to the visor problem, and gained an advantage three laps out of the five. Then I deliberately gave the time back in the second sector, actually even more than I gained. After the race we got the penalty, which was then overturned once we provided Race Direction with the data and the sector times to clarify that I deliberately gave the time back on each occasion.”

“We’re not so happy with the result, but I think it was good to finish the race and get some more miles under our belts and now we look forward to going strong in Aragon.” 

Download High Res Pics