WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team to Start Malaysian GP from Rows Five and Eight

22-10-2022

WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team to Start Malaysian GP from Rows Five and Eight

Cal Crutchlow repeated his best Qualifying position so far with P15, while Darryn Binder was unlucky.

Following an intense Friday with hot and humid weather and some heavy rain showers, Saturday at the Sepang International Circuit stayed mainly dry for the MotoGP. In the scorching conditions Cal Crutchlow and Darryn Binder managed to improve throughout the day, but both suffered a crash as well.

WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team‘s Crutchlow didn’t have an easy day. After topping the time sheets in wet and drying FP2 yesterday, he went quicker on a dry track this morning, improving his FP1 time by 1.252 seconds while testing different tyres. Yet, a crash ended his further chase for a fast lap time prematurely, whereby he came away battered and bruised. He managed to remount on his Yamaha YZR-M1 in FP4 and in Qualifying, where he again went 0.743 seconds faster to finish Q1 in P5, repeating his and the team’s best Qualifying result to date lining up in 15th.

On the other side, MotoGP rookie Darryn Binder had to regain confidence after he already suffered a fall in Friday’s FP1. Yet, he managed to make some decent steps in Free Practice three this morning to go 1.426 seconds faster than in yesterday’s only full dry session.

After FP4, the South African was ready to step up, but unfortunately came off the track again in turn 11 in just his second flying lap. Luckily he managed to bring his bike back to the garage, but later on was unable to further improve due to yellow flags. He will start the Malaysian Grand Prix tomorrow at 15:00 local time (09:00 CET) from P24, the eighth row of the grid.

Cal Crutchlow

WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team

"Today to be 15th on the grid in a tricky day in Malaysia is not too bad. To be honest, I didn't have a clean lap at all, I could have gone faster but I wasn't. Anyway, to be 15th is okay, we have a big battle on our hands tomorrow, we need to improve our pace and we need to look at the data tonight to understand where we can be better. I hit my hand a little bit during the crash this morning and we also had some technical problem in FP3, and this is the reason we couldn't put a good lap time in the morning. But, overall, I feel okay and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's race."

Darryn Binder

WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team

“Today started off alright. I felt pretty good in FP3, making nice steps forward. Unfortunately, at the end with a bit of drizzle around the circuit, on the last couple of laps I wasn’t confident enough to put in a time attack at the end. But overall, I was quite happy. In FP4 I felt like I had a good pace with the used tyres. I was really feeling good going into the Qualifying. On my flying lap I was feeling really, really good in the first two sectors and sadly, I was just pushing too hard in corner 11. I made a mistake and I crashed. I managed to get the bike back and go out again at the end, but unfortunately, both laps were yellow flagged, so I wasn’t able to do a lap. Starting from the back of the grid tomorrow, but I’ll do my best.”