The first official tests for the 2016 MotoGP season came to a close on Wednesday, after three days of intense work for Cal Crutchlow and the LCR Honda Team at Sepang in Malaysia. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t completely on-side for the LCR squad and the rest of the field, with a damp track in the morning preventing any action early on, whilst an afternoon rain shower limited late track-time.

The track did dry up sufficiently for Crutchlow to set his fastest time of the day, however, with an impressive 2’00.992 making him the fourth fastest rider on the timesheets. Due to track conditions, this was slightly down on the Briton’s benchmark from Tuesday, however that 2’00.899 was also set on the race-spec tyres, unlike some of the lap-times from his rivals. With sixth overall in the combined standings, and one of the quickest on hard rubber, the 30 year-old can be happy with his and the team’s efforts.

The LCR Honda Team were given an extra boost during the final day, when HRC allowed Crutchlow a chance to give his feedback on a 2016 version of their RC213V engine. With his input, development on that and the rest of the factory package will continue at the next official testing session at Phillip Island in Australia between February 17th and 19th.

Cal Crutchlow #35 – 4th – 2’00.992 (6th overall, 2’00.899, day 2)

“It’s not been a bad day today and I’m pleased with the progress over the Sepang test. It was another different day trying various electronics settings on the bike, and Honda were very generous to give us a newer version of the engine. It wasn’t the latest spec, but the one in the middle and we worked really well with it.”

“We gave Honda the information they needed for some testing materials, keeping the same chassis, but overall we were quite pleased. We never pushed too much because we didn’t want to make any mistakes at this test, and I think we come out of it in quite good shape.”

“Now we go to Phillip Island and I look forward to testing out there; the LCR Honda Team have done another great job and I can’t wait to see all the guys out there in another two weeks’ time.”