MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow of Great Britain riding his motorcycle competes in the third free practice session at the Czech Republic Grand Prix, in Brno ahead of the Grand Prix today.
BRNO, Czech Republic: Britain’s Cal Crutchlow stunned the favourites in yesterday’s qualifying session and grabbed pole position for today’s Czech MotoGP.
The 27-year-old Yamaha rider clocked 1min 55.527sec, a new record at the 5.4-kilometre (3.4-mile) circuit in the southern Czech city of Brno, for his second pole position of the season.
“A fantastic job today,” said Crutchlow, lavishing praise on his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 team.
“We did a good job at progressing every session. We’ve struggled this weekend in most sessions and we seem to be getting better and better as the weekend goes on.”
Crutchlow already dominated the free practices, clocking the fastest time in the third one yesterday. In the qualification, he improved it by more than six tenths of a second.
“I look forward to rest, tomorrow hopefully we can head for a podium,” added Crutchlow, who had scored his first-ever MotoGP podium finish in Brno last year when he finished third.
Crutchlow, fifth in the MotoGP standings, edged eighth-ranked Alvaro Bautista of Spain in the qualifying.
The Honda Gresini rider finished second 0.227 seconds behind Crutchlow after holding the circuit record for a few minutes himself.
“I’ll try to make a good start and push as hard as I can,” said the 28-year-old, adding he had experienced problems with the rear grip in free practices.
“Today we found something that helped me a lot and in the qualifying I (could) push so much,” he said.
Bautista’s compatriot and overall leader Marc Marquez, who won the previous three MotoGP races, was third fastest, 0.336sec slower than Crutchlow.AFP
