VOL. 54 ISSUE 14 APRIL 11, 2017 P69
was following I could see I had a
little more."
He was less tired than after
his third place in Qatar, but es-
pecially he was happy because
of finally getting the bike suited
to his style, and "because of
great work by Yamaha, because
we have more top speed, still
with great driveability." He was
2.9 seconds adrift of Vinales,
who had set fastest lap, short of
Rossi's 2015 record.
Crutchlow settled for third,
another second down, after
crashing out in Qatar. "I had
some warning light on the dash,
but I didn't panic."
The front three did not get
all the attention. In a race that
then he crashed. After that, I
just did my pace, but thinking a
lot—how to use the map to save
the tires, in case I had to push
more."
He didn't have to, thanks—ex-
plained Crutchlow—to a rogue
warning light that came on a
couple of times. In any case,
the Briton had his hands full
with Rossi, chasing hard, and
then closing inexorably after half
distance.
Rossi also found Crutchlow
hard to get by, but having
improved his setting on race
morning, "I enjoyed it a lot after
another difficult weekend. I al-
ways knew I would have to fight
Cal for the podium, but when I
over second from front-row quali-
fier Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda),
with Rossi fourth.
But the defending champion
would only manage one more
corner, losing the front on the
way into turn two, in a carbon
copy of his own Friday crash.
"This kind of mistake makes me
really disappointed, because I
was feeling quite comfortable,"
he said soon afterwards.
We would never know if
Vinales could have caught him,
after coming charging through
from sixth on the grid. "It was
a difficult race. It was hard to
overtake Cal—he is very good on
the brakes. I was ready to push
100 percent to try to catch Marc,
