After overnight rain in Valencia left the track surface damp this morning, the CWM LCR Honda riders had to wait for it to dry completely before they could leave the pits for the final day of three days testing at the Spanish circuit.

Heavy rain yesterday had frustrated Cal Crutchlow’s chance to continue his familiarisation with his factory spec Honda RC213V, but today the British rider put in a solid stint of 53 laps. Making a series of short runs throughout the day, Crutchlow was finally able to improve on his best lap time of the test so far, setting a 1’31.774 late in the day on a used set of tyres.

The day wasn’t without incident as the 29 year-old experienced a strange crash when he highsided at turn one after water got onto his rear tyre, however despite some light damage to his knees and his hands, he was able to return to the track and set his best times.

Crutchlow will now return to his Isle of Man home before beginning his pre-season training programme in California ahead of his next test session with the CWM LCR Honda Team at the start of February in Malaysia.


Cal Crutchlow #35 (8th, 1’31.774, 53 laps – 10th overall)

“Overall I think we can be quite pleased with the performance during this test session. We didn’t really focus on the lap time that much, but more on improving my understanding of the bike and how to ride it. We made a few changes to the chassis set-up and the electronics package, but it is still quite difficult for me to understand at the moment. That’s why I’m happy that we were able to set our fastest lap time with the old tyre, we never took the benefit of new tyres.

Unfortunately I had a fairly heavy crash when going through turn one. I dragged my knee through some standing water on the inside of the corner and it splashed water out onto my back tyre, so I highsided when I got on the throttle. There’s a bit of pain in my knees and my hands, particularly my thumb, but I was able to go back out on track.

Finally, I’m glad we’ve gathered a lot of data that both the CWM LCR Honda Team and HRC can analyse over the winter, so now it is time to have a good rest and then prepare for testing again at Sepang in February 2015.“

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