Cal Crutchlow signs off with points finish in Portugal

Cal Crutchlow brought the curtain down on his LCR Honda career with a points finish in the season-ending Portuguese Grand Prix on Sunday. The LCR Honda CASTROL rider came home in 13th position and, although it was not the result he was hoping for, he fought to the end in typical fashion as he bid farewell to the MotoGP class.

Having qualified in fourth spot, Cal underlined his excellent pace round the Portimao circuit by going fastest in the morning warm-up session. Hopes for a big result were boosted by a solid start and at one point the Briton passed Pol Espargaro to move into fourth spot. But in a hectic end to the race, Cal lost positions as he pushed his hardest to stay in touch and eventually had to settle for 13th.

Cal Crutchlow – 13th
“First of all, I want to say thank you to my team for the last six years, we’ve had some incredible moments. This year obviously didn’t go to plan, but with the team that I’ve spent the most amount of time with in my career, it was nice to finish it with them. I gave my all this weekend, I topped a couple of the sessions, I went for it in the race, unfortunately I didn’t have the rear tyre under me to be able to continue to push at that pace, but I was glad to finish the race and glad to have the season over and my full-time career finished, which was the decision I took earlier in the year and am happy with. Now I look forward to watching from afar, obviously I’ll still be in a testing role next year, but I look forward to watching the MotoGP races in years to come. It’s going to be exciting, I’ll let these young guys take the reins and go for it and I wish them all the best.”