Courageous Crutchlow ends bruising British Grand Prix in seventh

Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team rider Cal Crutchlow showed tremendous determination and desire in this afternoon’s British Grand Prix, the home crowd hero racing to a seventh place finish in front of a record attendance at Silverstone.

British teammate Bradley Smith also demonstrated his battling qualities in the 20-lap race to secure ninth position, which was his eighth top 10 finish in 12 appearances on Yamaha’s YZR-M1 machine.

Almost 74,000 British fans were cheering when Crutchlow kick off the race in a decent way from the front row of the grid.

Cal Crutchlow, Monster Yamaha Tech 3

Photo by: Bridgestone

After defying the pain, Crutchlow still got a rapturous reception from his loyal home crowd, who were appreciative of his efforts to claim a 10th top 10 finish of the season.

Smith kept his challenge for a top 10 position in the overall World Championship standings on course after he was narrowly beaten to eighth place in the closing stages.

The 22-year-old attacked from the off and brilliantly kept Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso at bay until four laps from the end. Relegated to ninth, Smith mounted a relentless pursuit of American Hayden in the final stages but he couldn’t find a way through and the chequered flag saw him less than 0.2s behind the 2006 MotoGP World Champion.

Cal Crutchlow (Position: 7th - Time: +26.299): “Honestly I’m pleased the weekend is over and at least we finished the race. It certainly wasn’t the easiest race I have ever done and it is disappointing that I couldn’t challenge. But after the crashes I just had no power at all in my right arm and I was also lacking grip at the start when the tyres were cold.

Unfortunately that is what happens when you crash three times in a weekend. I didn’t give myself enough time to get laps under the belt to set the bike up properly. The only positive we can take away is that we have been faster than last year. But it’s definitely less than what I hoped for when we arrived at the track on Wednesday.

Congratulations though to Jorge, Marc and Dani because they put on an incredible show today and had fantastic speed. I’d have loved to be up there with them and now I’m just looking forward to a few quiet days at home before we go to Misano where I hope to fighting closer to the front again.”

Bradley Smith (Position: 9th - Time: +36.119): “I was very pleased with my start and we decided to race with the softer rear tyre option, as we were lacking a bit of grip during the whole weekend. I wanted the sun to come out but unfortunately the temperatures remained cold and after just three laps we already knew that the race would be difficult one.

Probably the hard tyre would have been the right choice but we did not have enough time to evaluate it yesterday. We did what we could and even if I didn’t want to finish behind Nicky, I decided it was safer the finish the race after Andrea crashed out just in front of me. All in all it has been a tough weekend but riding in front of nearly 75.000 British here today has been an incredible feeling.”

Yamaha Racing