THE FINAL Italian race for home team Ducati turned out to be another unforgettable one for Coventry’s Cal Crutchlow.
The 28-year-old started the San Marino and Rimini Riviera Grand Prix on Sunday from row five after qualifying in the 13th quickest time overall.
Crutchlow spent the middle stages of the race battling with Alvaro Bautista (Honda) and Aleix Espargaro (Yamaha) with the latter falling on the final lap.
This allowed Crutchlow to cross the line two-seconds behind Bautista while team mate Andrea Dovizioso was over 30-seconds ahead in fourth.
And while understands Ducati developments are being prioritised for other riders ahead of his departutre to LCR Honda next year, he is still puzzled by the size of the gap between himself and Dovizioso.
“It was a rather disappointing result considering I felt we could have competed a bit better with some of the riders in front of us this weekend,” said Crutchlow.
“I never had a good feeling at the start of the race with a full fuel tank and couldn’t stop the bike so well.
“Once the fuel load went down, we started to get a bit faster, but I made a lot of mistakes in the race, maybe ten seconds worth.
“Around lap 20 I felt I had a problem with the tyre so I had to slow down for two laps and check and then once I got going again I was doing my fastest laps in the race. Hopefully we can have a better race weekend at Aragon.”
