Why Cal Crutchlow turned down MotoGP comeback before his wife changed his mind

Crutchlow recounts his conversation with his wife as he prepares for an unexpected return to MotoGP

Cal Crutchlow has revealed he initially rejected LCR’s offer to return to MotoGP at Mugello before encouragement from his wife changed his mind.

Crutchlow will make his first grand prix appearance in three years at the Italian Grand Prix this weekend, standing in for the injured Johann Zarco.

LCR’s options for a replacement rider were already limited when Zarco broke his knee during the restart for the Catalan Grand Prix a fortnight ago.

With Aleix Espargaro injured after his own accident and Takaaki Nakagami prioritising the development of the 2027 bike, both of Honda’s test riders were unavailable, prompting LCR to call up its former rider Crutchlow instead.

The Briton retired as a full-time rider back in 2020, and has made fewer than a dozen appearances since then as part of his role as a test rider for Yamaha.

With a hand injury in 2024 further curtailing his track time in recent years, the thought of making a comeback at the last minute in Mugello did not appeal to Crutchlow.

But a conversation with his wife prompted him to agree to the opportunity presented by LCR team boss Lucio Cecchinello.

“On Monday, I went home and Lucy said to me, Dako [Dakota Mamola] called you. I had Lucio and many people from the team call me and I had some messages.

“Finally, I spoke to Dako and he said, ‘the team wants you to come back and race’.

“I never thought he was joking because I understood the situation. And then I went home and Lucy said, ‘did Daco call you?’ And I said, ‘I'm not interested’. And she said, ‘why not?’ She said, ‘you've done it your whole life, so I don't understand why you're not doing it’.

Pressed further as to why he was initially hesitant, Crutchlow added: “I thought I was getting more tame and less mad. And then realised that I obviously wasn't and said no.

“I said yes because my wife told me to do it. She's been by my side my whole career. And I made a decision with her. And she said to me, the words were, ‘your life and our life has been an adventure our whole life, so why are we stopping now?’ So I said, ‘OK, I'm going’.”

Loyalty to LCR

Cal Crutchlow, Team LCR Honda

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Crutchlow said the loyalty to his former team, with which he scored three grand prix wins, played a key role in his decision to come back.

“I wouldn't have done it for another team,” he said. “If the factory Ducati Team rang me, I wouldn't have done it. If Aprilia rang me, I wouldn't have done it.

“I did it because Lucio and the team asked me to do it. And I did come to a point where I thought, ‘why not?’”

First test

To prepare for his MotoGP comeback, Crutchlow took part in a private test at Misano on Wednesday, where he was joined by test riders from each manufacturer.

“On Tuesday, I spoke with Dako and we started to understand whether it was possible for me to ride before,” he said. “Because if not, it's not right to come here after so long not riding, and go into FP1 at 360km/h into Turn 1.

“So luckily, we were able to organise a test. I did some laps yesterday and today, I feel like I've been hit by a bus.”

“Yesterday was not great, to be honest. It was great to get back on. But of course, my feeling with the bike, everything was strange. But it was as expected. I don't know what I expected.”

MotoGP has heavily increased its reliance on aerodynamics in the years Crutchlow has been out of the paddock. This has led to rapid improvements in lap times, with riders regularly shattering long-standing lap records.

Crutchlow admitted that he faces a challenge adapting to modern MotoGP machinery, as he revealed how his first lap times in Mugello left him shocked.

“The biggest thing is I need to get comfortable on the bike," he said. “At the moment, I'm not comfortable ergonomically on the bike because the bikes have changed a lot. So my position on the bike has changed a lot also.

“I knew the lap time when I was on the podium in Misano. And if I didn't look at the lap timer when I was riding, I thought, nobody can go around this track faster than me. Never. It's f*****g impossible. You know, I'm completely at the limit. Nobody will go faster than me. And I was 10 seconds too slow. This was in the first laps.

“And I looked down, I came in and I was thinking, I don't know whether to ask them whether the lap timer is broken or I should just keep quiet for a minute.

“But over the day, obviously, everything improved. But they are hard to ride. But I don't think they were any harder. It's just hard with the amount of time I've had not riding. It's as simple as that.

“The one thing is, I don't think anybody else could do it. I genuinely don't. I don't think anybody else is mad enough to do it either.”