"Misshapen" rear tyre behind Crutchlow's Sepang disaster

After qualifying 10th, Crutchlow rapidly went backwards in the early moments of the Malaysian Grand Prix, and completed the first lap in 22nd and last place.

From there, the Briton steadily recovered to 15th place, 50 seconds down on race winner Andrea Dovizioso, claiming a solitary point for his worst MotoGP finish last year's Austria race.

Explaining his lack of place after the race, Crutchlow said he could feel a problem with his rear tyre – which his LCR team described as 'misshapen' in its post-race release – as early as the warm-up lap.

"I knew already [about the problem] on the warm-up lap, and I was last by the second corner of the race from 10th on the grid," recalled Crutchlow.

"And then I just rode round, making sure I finished the race because it looked like I would get points if I just rode round. The only time the tyre started to work was the last lap.

"The warm-up lap, I had a big vibration, no rear grip immediately. I cruised around, unable to even open the throttle. I was wide everywhere because I couldn't lean the bike, the rear grip was that bad.

"I tried to go at the start of the race, I braked into Turn 1 and the brakes didn't work because they had water on, from the spray from the other riders.

"Then I tipped into Turn 1, had a moment, tipped into Turn 2, had a moment, Turn 3, nearly high-sided. Then I was last, and I was happy, because then there was no risk to anyone else."

Asked where he could have finished without the problem, Crutchlow responded: "I think we would have finished in the top six.

"I don't think we had the pace of the Ducatis, but I had the pace to beat Dani [Pedrosa], going on where he was the other day, if we had a decent rear tyre.

"We could have been a lot further up than what I was, no doubt about that, if I could open up the throttle more than 10 percent on the exit of the corners."

Additional reporting by Scherazade Mulia Saraswati