Mugello wasn\u2019t on the calendar for Crutchlow\u2019s final 2020 full-time season, nor among his eleven wildcard\/replacement appearances for Yamaha in 2021-2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can only speak about Honda, because I’m riding Honda. The bike is amazing. It\u2019s a lot better than me,\u201d said Crutchlow, who was forced to retire halfway through the Italian Grand Prix due to a muscle tear in his shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you speak to other Honda riders, they want to make improvements and of course, I\u2019m also giving comments to try to help them.<\/p>\n
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![\"Cal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gng_1318691_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Cal Crutchlow, 2026 Italian MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bikes are heavy, really heavy with the downforce of the wings and all of these things now. But I think most of the bikes feel like this. And obviously to me they feel even heavier because I haven’t been riding them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are amazing bikes now. But that doesn’t mean they’re easy to ride because I think they’re a lot harder to ride now than before.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I’m comparing to \u201822, 23, 24 when I was doing the [Yamaha] testing, they are similar, honestly speaking. But if I’m comparing to 2019 and 2020, they are a lot more difficult to ride.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we only used to have some front wings. Now we have front, side, back, seat unit, all of these things to create downforce.\u201d<\/p>\n
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![\"Cal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gng_1320268_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Cal Crutchlow, 2026 Italian MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
Crutchlow, a three-time Grand Prix winner for LCR, also reflected on how MotoGP has evolved away from the track, with riders now facing greater demands than ever before.<\/p>\n
\u201cMotoGP as a whole, the paddock, is moving on with the times – media, social media and all of these things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m 40 years old, so I’m at a different point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s very difficult for the riders, first of all. They have so much attention, press, and commitments, all of these things instead of just racing.<\/p>\n
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\u201c50% of them want to just race. And 50% are happy to be doing these kinds of things because they like the spotlight more. But you are always going to get this.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what I think they are doing in MotoGP is very, very good.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore and more people are watching. People I know who don’t even know that much about MotoGP will watch it on their TV. All of these things.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think it is going in the right direction for MotoGP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“For the riders. I don’t know. I think it is a big commitment to be doing what they are doing now and trying to race.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat’s my only take, but I am sure most of them feel the same. But it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crutchlow will be back on track for LCR at Balaton Park this weekend.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal Crutchlow says the current MotoGP prototypes are “amazing” but also significantly harder to ride than the machines…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,340873,15613,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-712513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cal-crutchlow","tag-lcr-honda","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}