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LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow was puzzled by his overtake on Suzuki’s Alex Rins in Misano’s MotoGP race as he had “never known” a rider to surrender a position so easily.
Rins, running a soft rear tyre, battled through from 10th to fourth in the opening laps rider could not sustain the charge.
A third of the way into the race, he allowed Crutchlow through into fourth after going wide at Turn 1.
Asked about the Rins pass after the race, Crutchlow said: “He was just weak. he saw me coming, at three or four-tenths a lap I caught him, and he moved over twice in two corners to let me past.
“And then finally he braked early and just ran wide and basically waved me through. No idea.”
Rins faded to over seven seconds behind Crutchlow by the end of the race, but did not cede any further positions, holding off Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales in the end.
This allowed Rins to ultimately clinch fourth place after Jorge Lorenzo’s late crash, which also promoted Crutchlow to the podium.
Crutchlow continued: “But he [Rins] did a great race, because he stayed in his position, he came with me for a couple of laps, perfect.
“I have no idea, I’ve never known a rider to suddenly just basically move out of the way.
“It was nice, it was an easy pass.”
Rins explained that he had run into trouble with the medium-compound front tyre, as opposed to the soft rear that he “managed quite well”.
“I gave my 100% all the race, from the beginning at the start,” Rins said.
“Then when Crutchlow overtook me I was hoping, trying to go with him, but was difficult because I had some problems on the front.
“I don’t know it was the performance of the tyre or what, but [it] goes down very fast. Already in FP3 and FP4 we had more or less the same problem.
“I considered to finish the race, and not lose time overtaking Cal.”