LCR Honda and their British rider Cal Crutchlow find themselves in Australia this week, where day one of the second official pre-season testing session was badly affected by rain showers throughout. The picturesque Phillip Island circuit, which lies to the south of Melbourne, can often be caught out by the weather due to its clifftop location and so it proved on Wednesday as Crutchlow was forced to try out the new wet spec Michelin tyres.

The Brit had fairly positive feedback from the rain tyres, working on the 2015-spec factory Honda engine because of the weather situation. He will try the updated version of that engine from tomorrow, when better conditions are predicted.

Crutchlow did manage to squeeze two laps in with the slick tyres when the track briefly dried out, setting the fifth fastest time of the day in the process. However, no sooner had he set his fast lap than the drizzle returned. 

#35 Cal Crutchlow – 5th (1’32.948)

“Today was pretty much a wasted day. We waited around a lot, but there wasn’t really much we could do with the weather situation. We kept going out with the rain tyre but then the track would dry up too much.”

“Towards the end we put on the slicks and then it’s started to rain so we didn’t get any real information from the dry tyre at all. Even in the two laps I did I could tell we still have some way to go in terms of the power of the bike and the electronics.”

“We were quite happy with the situation in the rain, but now we need to work very hard overnight and then going into tomorrow we will have a lot of different things to try. Hopefully the weather is better as is forecasted. I love riding this circuit, so it would be good to enjoy a full day’s testing here.”