Cal Crutchlow says his LCR Honda does not have a “good enough rhythm” to do a race simulation on the final day of Qatar MotoGP pre-season test.
Crutchlow was just 18th on Saturday's timesheets after a difficult session in which he reportedly suffered an engine issue, and subsequently cancelled all media duties later that evening.
The Briton was ninth fastest at the end of today's session, 0.654 seconds off the pace, and carried out back-to-back testing with the current Honda and the 2018 version.
While happier on the latest RC213V than he was on Saturday, Crutchlow believes he is “probably two seconds” off the best race pace at the moment and doesn't think LCR has a set-up ready to carry out a race run on the final day of testing on Monday.
“Day one was not very positive at all,” he said.
“We had a terrible day with not being able to find a setting with the bike and me not feeling good and comfortable, and it seems that most of the Honda's were struggling.
“Today it seems a bit more of an improvement [was made], maybe not so much on my side of the garage with the Honda, but it seems the Repsol team has done a good job and has improved the package a little bit.
“But we are working on different programs today especially, tomorrow we will start to work on the same sort of bikes and settings I think.
“But honestly speaking I'm happier today than yesterday, but it looks like we have a lot of work to do.
“At the moment we're not in good enough rhythm and we don't have a setting on the bike to be able to do a long run.
“We have too many things to do than to work out a long run. If you want to do a long run then you want to do it in the best shape possible, and at the moment we're probably two seconds off the best pace possible.”
Marquez closer to the top guys
Marc Marquez admitted after Saturday's session Honda was “very far” from its main rivals on long run pace, but felt after finishing fifth fastest on Sunday he is now “much closer”.
“We did a big step on the set-up of the bike, on the feeling, and now on the rhythm I'm much closer to the top guys,” said Marquez, who was 0.411s from the best pace.
“Still we are not the fastest one, but we need to understand where we are: that is Qatar, where we normally struggle a little bit.
“It's not the best circuit for us, but we are coming closer and closer and this is important.”
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