Crutchlow<\/a> explained.<\/p>\n\u201cI’m doing it because Lucio asked me to. My wife said, Why not? And then I came to the same decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Cal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gng_1322138_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Cal Crutchlow, 2026 Hungarian MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
While ruling out a full-time return, Crutchlow left the door open to future Honda testing work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been my life for so many years. I’m not saying it’s difficult to let it go – because I didn\u2019t call anyone; they called me – but I’m not coming back to racing next year.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI’m not doing this for that. But if it leads to something, okay… Test riding, I don’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
After retiring in 2020, Crutchlow immediately signed as a Yamaha test rider, which also resulted in eleven replacement\/wildcard race appearances.<\/p>\n
Crutchlow\u2019s final Yamaha start was at Motegi 2023, before complications from hand surgery kept him sidelined.<\/p>\n
Andrea Dovizioso then took over M1 development duties alongside Augusto Fernandez for 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still have the ability to be competitive enough, and my information [feedback] is correct,\u201d Crutchlow said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cEverything is working well. The LCR team is great, and I’ve also been with Honda for so long in my career. My relationship with them is always really, really good.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re happy, I’m happy. We just have to build on the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
After withdrawing halfway through the Italian MotoGP due to a muscle tear, Crutchlow returned to finish both Balaton Park races at the back of the field.<\/p>\n
With Zarco yet to undergo surgery, the 40-year-old will continue at LCR for at least the Brno and Assen rounds.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal Crutchlow has made clear that his MotoGP comeback is not the start of a return to full-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,340873,15613,5745,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-733701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cal-crutchlow","tag-lcr-honda","tag-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733701","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=733701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Cal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gng_1322305_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n