Crutchlow: Getting the mojo back

Ducati: an untameable red monster that lures riders with the delusion that they will be the one who can subjugate the beast and bring MotoGP's most evocative marque back to the top, only to spit them back out with dreams shattered and careers in tatters. And in 2014, Cal Crutchlow joined the list of its victims...

Or did he? The lazy cliches about what riding the Ducati Desmosedici will do to any MotoGP rider other than Casey Stoner began with the Australian's initially-vast margin over Loris Capirossi in 2007, and never really went away, stoked by how Marco Melandri and Valentino Rossi suffered at their compatriot team.

But in Crutchlow's case, there are none of the baffled, bitter regrets of some of the others whose Ducati stints proved brief. He's sure he could've adapted to the Desmosedici just fine - in fact, in the final part of 2014, he did - but for his hand-breaking, confidence-rattling crash at Austin.

Had he been fit, acclimatising wouldn't have been a problem. Had he already acclimatised, the crash would've been easier to conquer. Reasons, not excuses. No red monster, no team pining for Stoner, just pragmatic northern logic.

"I was on the pace with the other Ducati guys until I crashed in Texas. Up until then, I felt confident," he says.

"I think it's probably one of the biggest crashes of my career. After that I wasn't willing to push and take risks as much as I had before until I got my confidence back.

"It took me a long time to get it back because I had no real feeling for or understanding of the bike. That wasn't just the bike's fault, it was more me not having feeling with it.

"It's clear to see the bike was not too bad because [Andrea] Dovi[zioso] was able to get some quite good results on it at that time.

A crash at Austin ruined Crutchlow's confidence, and his season

"It was just for me to adapt, and the other guys had already had a year on it."

Motorcycle racing is simultaneously more human and more superhuman than other motorsports. The spectre of what could go wrong looms much larger when you're not cocooned in a cockpit and safety cell, and the raw physicality involved in balancing a bike on the limit requires the rider to have absolute self-belief at all times.

A confidence wobble in Formula 1 might mean underwhelming pace for a stint or a few tenths difference between team-mates in qualifying. In MotoGP those intra-team gaps can be vast - and the crashes frequent - when a rider doubts anything about themselves or their package. When they talk of 'feeling' and 'rhythm', those words have real significance to performance. Only rallying is really comparable in that respect.

If Crutchlow's dip hadn't coincided with Pramac rider Andrea Iannone shaking off the effects of a similarly-disturbed 2013 season and showing the massive potential that his rapid-but-wild junior class form had always hinted at, Ducati wouldn't have had an obvious long-term alternative to commit to.

Then the Brit's superb end of 2014 might have been the launchpad for a lengthy and successful Ducati career rather than a 'here's what you could've had' farewell. But Crutchlow isn't wasting any time with speculative 'what ifs'.

"It was nothing to do with my speed because you don't lose speed overnight. I knew I was as fast as the other guys at Ducati. It was a case of the situation that played out in front of me at the time.

"Ducati signed two riders for two years. I had one year left on my contract if I wanted to accept it. But if I'd won the championship for them, where would I have gone the following year if they'd already got two guys?

"I think I've been quite clever in my career with making choices of where to go and at what point. I had the option to go somewhere else. It was my option, I'd already signed for two years, and if I'd wanted to leave I could. And I did."

Don't mistake that pragmatism for Crutchlow being sanguine about how 2014 turned out. Obviously he was frustrated to be trailing the other Ducatis early on, and for his first season in a factory team to bring fewer podiums and points than his 2013 Tech 3 Yamaha campaign. But why make a lot of futile emotional noise about it when to his mind all parties involved acted absolutely logically and the outcome - "they've got two great riders and I'm going to a great team" - works for everyone?

Crutchlow was a match for Dovizioso and his upgraded bike in the final races

That outlook was evident all season. He wasn't going to lie about Dovizioso and Iannone being the ones that got the upgrades (including the new-spec GP14.2 version of the bike), but neither was he going to publicly bleat about it.

"I haven't had anything new on the bike except an engine update, but I was still two phases behind the other guys. I don't have any hard feelings about it because I understand the situation.

"They were always bringing parts, they only had a certain amount of parts, and I wasn't fast enough, so they'd give them to Iannone.

"Of course it was frustrating at times, but I understood the thinking behind it. I wasn't angry towards them in any sense. If I would've been fast enough, I would've got the parts. I wasn't fast enough and that was it.

"I wouldn't have wanted to change the situation because I think it gave me more determination towards the end of the year anyway."

The end of the year included a podium in the wet at Aragon, but more tellingly a string of excellent qualifying results (headlined by second on the Phillip Island grid) and a Valencia finale spent mostly side by side with Dovizioso's GP14.2. And there were no upgrades or set-up tweaks behind that upsurge. Just a return of confidence.

While F1 has loosened up a little of late, it's still rare for its personalities to be as open as Crutchlow, and its drivers still trail their MotoGP counterparts for mischief and outspokenness with the press and on social media too.

A string of telephone interviews on a gloomy winter Tuesday is not Crutchlow in his absolute element - the sparks, sometimes playful and sometimes combative, so evident in his paddock sessions with a familiar press pack are toned down - but he can't help but be forthright and genuine in his opinions.

Since Ben Spies' enforced retirement, Crutchlow has been the only MotoGP frontrunner with a background in superbikes, not the grand prix ladder. And he doesn't think that's down to MotoGP teams' myopia.

Crutchlow has already got a taste of life with new team LCR

"I really believe a lot of the World Superbike guys have the talent to be at the front in MotoGP. It's just that they won't take the risk or they won't take the pay cut. I had to do it at the start.

"They get stuck in their routine of racing, getting paid a half-decent salary to be there. They're quite content with that for the next 10 years of their lives. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but a lot of them did want to come to MotoGP.

"If you look at the last year, there have been options for so many World Superbike riders to come to MotoGP. So many. Teams do look at World Superbikes, 100 per cent. Sure, they look at Moto2, but at the moment there's no one in Moto2 worth coming up like there was a few years ago."

He underlines how determined he had been to make the fastest possible progress through the superbike ranks to MotoGP, certain it was best to do the "really, really difficult" learning process required in the top class itself rather than risk stalling or stagnating en route.

As for the future, he reiterates that it's about "prolonging my career at the front of MotoGP". It's a very Crutchlow stance. Of course he believes he can be a grand prix winner; he wouldn't be doing this if he didn't, and top teams wouldn't be signing him if they didn't agree.

He's a feisty racer and he showed at Tech 3 that he can be an explosive qualifier too. There have been plenty of crashes, but that happens when you're trying to showcase yourself on machinery not quite as competitive as your ambitions.

He doesn't need to scream empty cliches about world championship dreams to justify himself, and no one wins races on satellite bikes these days anyway. The viable target is to be a MotoGP frontrunner for as long as possible, so ensuring that is the priority. Ducati became a dead end. LCR/Honda guarantees two years on very decent machinery and then there will be another chess move to be played.

He's similarly realistic that while LCR has a factory-spec Honda, that doesn't mean absolute equipment parity with Marc Marquez. If Honda's upgrades work, parts are available, and he's performing well, Crutchlow expects better kit to filter down. If those factors don't apply, fair enough.

The Briton feels he still has plenty to offer at the highest level

The closest technical comparison is with Honda's other satellite factory team, newcomer Marc VDS. And there's another Brit there in Scott Redding, one who's already made clear he sees it as a shop window to advertise his works-team potential to Honda. But battling Redding for Honda attention isn't in Crutchlow's mind.

"I don't look at Scott as a threat to be honest. He beat me in a couple of races this year when I was at my worst ever in my career, and he was at his best ever in his career. I've got other people to look at.

"He's a great, talented rider, but I don't think it's his time. In two or three years, he'll be at the front of MotoGP. I believe he'll get his first podium [in 2015], but I don't believe he'll be a contender week in, week out."

Forthright, but fair. And using the same standards Crutchlow applies to himself. That's why he can openly admit that parts of 2014 were his worst ever form. But after the resurgence, how far off his best is he now?

"I would say there were points in 2013 and the year before where I was a lot stronger than I am now. I believe there's still quite a lot in the tank.

"I want to get back to the front [in 2015] and be in the mix with the factory guys.

"If it meant I finished fourth in every race but I was competitive with them, I'd be happy with that. There's no reason why I can't be.

"I'm back to a good point, I've got speed, but I believe that I've been faster."

The 2015 MotoGP season kicks off in Qatar on March 29. Watch all the action from race day and qualifying exclusively live on BT Sport.