Crutchlow adamant he can compete in dry as well as wet

The LCR Honda rider sauntered to his first pole position in over three years by a margin of nearly a second over nearest rival Valentino Rossi, reveling in the wet conditions.

It followed Crutchlow’s first MotoGP win in Brno two weeks ago, which took place on a drying track.

But the Briton insists that he is in good shape for a top result in the dry, saying his satellite RC213V has the pace to at least finish in the top five, whatever the conditions on race day.

“I didn’t honestly believe I was pushing that much,” recalled Crutchlow of his pole-winning lap. “The next lap I pushed, and I nearly crashed at Turn 1 [Copse].

“But then I looked at the laptime and saw everybody was quite a lot slower, and thought ‘maybe I was taking some risks’.

“I cruised around for the rest of the qualifying, thinking if someone starts to come a bit faster, then I’ll go. But I knew as it started to rain heavier, it would be difficult. I took the risk at the right time."

He added: “I believe with the hard tyre, we’re in good shape to be in the top five. Our issues this weekend are a bit better, because there isn’t so much hard acceleration.

“I feel in a dry race we can be competitive, I’ll do what I can to be battling at the front and give 100 percent no matter the weather.”

No bike breakthroughs

Despite his recent run of strong form, which included a second place finish at the Sachsenring before his Brno win, Crutchlow feels there has been little significant progress with the bike in that time.

Asked whether there had been any big improvements to his LCR-run bike recently, he said: “I felt we made a good step four or five races ago, but now it’s at a standstill.

“The Honda is working well in general. It’s hard to ride, quite physical, but in the last races we’ve made it work in both conditions. “It’s getting a little better, the situation.

Crutchlow did however reveal that he was running with a new specification of chassis in qualifying, although he was unsure if he would use in in the race.

“HRC wanted me to evaluate this chassis, so I did – and we had it in qualifying,” said the Briton.

“I don’t know the final decision for the race, but it’s good. It’s a little different, better in one way and worse in another. I’m just evaluating it for them and maybe we race it tomorrow.”