An unhappy weekend for Cal Crutchlow and the LCR Honda team was compounded when the Briton failed to finish the Japanese Grand Prix. As it did throughout this year’s event, more rain fell at the Twin Ring circuit in Motegi on Sunday and Crutchlow suffered two falls in a difficult wet race that was eventually won by Andrea Dovizioso.

Starting from down in 15th spot on the grid, Crutchlow was hampered by the spray from bikes in front of him in the early stages before he crashed on lap five. The LCR rider managed to remount and then head back out on his spare bike, although he was well down the field. However, a miserable time in Japan was complete when he fell again and the Briton is now looking to move on and regroup in Australia next week – the scene of one of his two premier class victories last year.

#35 Cal Crutchlow - DNF

“Obviously, it’s a disappointing end to the Japanese Grand Prix. I was fighting at the start of the race, but I was really far back in the pack and there was so much spray from the other bikes I think all the riders found it very difficult to see.

“Then unfortunately I crossed the river at turn seven, there was some rear brake pressure and I high-sided the bike off throttle. But I remounted and took the spare bike and then had a very strange crash as I was not pushing hard and was about to enter the pit in one more lap because I was not going to score any points.

“We hit the stream of water in the back straight, but it was a really mysterious crash the second one. Now we have to take the positives to Phillip Island, which are that I won there last year, but there have been no real positives from the Japanese Grand Prix apart from visiting Japan itself.”