Crutchlow Secures Fifth Row Start in Thailand, Binder to Line up in Row Eight

01-10-2022

Crutchlow Secures Fifth Row Start in Thailand, Binder to Line up in Row Eight

The WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team will launch off from the fifth row for the second time in 2022.

Hot and very humid conditions greeted the MotoGP paddock on Saturday at the Chang International Circuit. Following a dry, but very exciting Friday for the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team in Thailand, Cal Crutchlow managed to repeat the team’s best Qualifying result today with P5 in Q1, a result that Andrea Dovizioso achieved earlier this season in Austin, Texas.

The Englishman and Yamaha test rider, who is replacing the retired Italian, was giving his all today, after he suffered a heavy highside in yesterday’s FP2 session. Crutchlow went out with pain in his right foot from this morning, but still managed to get a decent job done throughout day two. He concluded the Free Practices in P15 overall and improved his fastest lap time from Friday by 0.339 seconds in Qualifying this afternoon to miss out on an eventual Q2 entry by less than half a second. He will start from the fifth row of the grid tomorrow.

On the other side of the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team garage, Darryn Binder landed a P21 in the combined standings after the three Free Practice sessions, still being close to the top, but unable to lower his lap time in FP3 this morning compared to Friday. Yet, the MotoGP rookie’s fastest time in Qualifying was slightly faster than his previous best this weekend. He concluded Qualifying one in P13, which means he’ll find himself in the eighth when the red lights go out for race 17 of 2022 tomorrow at 15:00 local time (10:00 CET).

Cal Crutchlow

WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team

“Obviously today I felt the effects of the injury from yesterday. I woke up not feeling very fresh, that’s sure. But overall, we can be happy with the performance today. I tried my best. In FP3, after what happened yesterday, I was a bit reluctant to push to the limit to try and go to Q2. So, we went into Q1 and to qualify 15th is not so bad. But honestly speaking, we are struggling with the rear grip of the bike this weekend.

“It’s a little bit due to the nature of the circuit, but also with the Yamaha, we seem to be struggling quite a lot. Therefore, we will look tonight together with the team and the Yamaha engineers, if we can improve this for tomorrow, because I think we can have a good race. My pace is good. I’m happy, but I know we can improve. So, let’s see the situation tomorrow for the race. We have the Warm Up to try a few things. Hopefully the Warm Up is dry or wet, if it’s going to be a wet race to get some time to understand the bike a bit more in these conditions. Overall, I think we have done a good job again this weekend.”

Darryn Binder

WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team

“We’ve been lucky enough today to get good weather again. But it was much hotter than yesterday and I felt the track conditions have been slightly more difficult in the heat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the step I was looking forward to in the Qualifying. Anyway, overall, I’ll just stay focused for tomorrow’s race, I’ll try to get everything together and do my best in the 26 laps of the race.”