Cal Crutchlow believes tyre choice for Sunday's MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix will be a “disaster”, as all three rear options appear to be viable to run over race distance.
The LCR Honda rider qualified his 2018 factory-spec RC213V fifth at the Red Bull Ring with a best lap of 1:23.812s, half a second from a spot on the front row.
Saturday's FP4 and Friday's FP1 have been the only sessions run in full dry conditions this weekend, which has stopped the field from evaluating each Michelin tyre in-depth.
Crutchlow thinks the soft, medium and hard tyre will be suitable for the race, which will be a “disaster” as it will affect how riders “play their tricks”.
“We can race all three options,” Crutchlow said. “It seems we can run any rear tyre, because Marc [Marquez] ran the soft the whole [FP4] session.
“He was fast with that, I ran the medium and was not so bad, and then I ran the hard at the end and was not so bad again.
“I think we can race all three options of the tyre, which makes it a disaster to be honest for the tyre selection and for the riders deciding what they want to do, and how they'll play their tricks.
“But I have some idea that we'll be racing the hard rear tomorrow.”
Commenting on his qualifying, Crutchlow says he was unable to put in a clean lap in the Q2 session, and believes the front row was out of reach for him.
“We were faster than last year, that's a positive of course. I made a really unclear lap in qualifying, I didn't get a clean lap at all for qualifying.
“I made a mistake down into Turn 4 my first fast lap, then I didn't realise Marc was there. Then on my other fast lap I made a couple of mistakes.
“We probably could have been faster, but I tried my best and fifth it was. I'm not sure I could have been on the front row anyway.
“I think I probably could have been fourth, not fifth, so we have to be happy with out job today.”
