MotoGP Aragon: Crutchlow ‘disappointed with time but back to being a racer’

Cal Crutchlow was back in MotoGP action at Motorland Aragon on Friday as he joined the WithU RNF Yamaha team.

His first competitive race weekend for a year, Crutchlow was up to speed and in the mix from the outset. Running on the fringes of the top ten in the morning practice as he re-familiarised himself with the 2022-spec YZR-M1 left vacant by Andrea Dovizioso, the Brit completed FP1 seven-tenths off the outright pace in 16th.

Improving his time by almost a second in the afternoon, despite technical issues which prevented a final hot lap, Crutchlow concluded day one 19th overall with a best time of 1’48.531.



“It was great to be back out on track this weekend with the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team,” Crutchlow said on Friday evening. “We worked well as a team today, we did some positive steps. We didn’t change the bike too much, but we managed to eliminate some things for the race weekend.

“It’s funny how you change your mindset from being a test rider back to a racer.

“I had good fun out there. At the end of the day, I was disappointed not to be able to really improve my lap time. We had a small issue with my brake and I wasn’t able to stop the bike in a good way but we know the problem, so hopefully tomorrow we can go a lot better.

“Overall, it was a good day working with the team, it was nice to be back out on track and now let’s see how the rest of the weekend goes.”