MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow slams Sachsenring's 'lottery' corner
LCR Honda MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow thinks making it through Sachsenring's Turn 11 is a "lottery", and the corner should be made "tighter and slower"
Turn 11, a fast right-hander after seven consecutive left corners at the newly-resurfaced German track, was the scene of three accidents during Friday's two practice sessions.
First, Andrea Iannone crashed his Suzuki, the bike rolling several times before landing upside down, then satellite Ducati riders Scott Redding and Alvaro Bautista fell in quick succession.
Crutchlow reckons Redding did "absolutely nothing wrong" when he crashed at the "tricky" corner.
"I have no idea why he crashed. The tyre he used had done three or four laps before," said Crutchlow.
"You can do absolutely nothing wrong, you can do everything right and still be on the floor."
The corner also received criticism in 2016, when Aleix Espargaro complained about it following several crashes in practice.
Crutchlow says the number of crashes at the turn should justify changing it.
"Don't get me wrong, I like fast corners, I like stuff that maybe is a little bit on the edge, but to me, just scrap it," added Crutchlow.
"It is getting way too out of control. You do your whole race weekend thinking 'fuck, will you make it there or not?'
"At the end of the day, you have to look how many crashes there are over a year and then you have to look at today, bikes flying through the air, marshals not even hearing them.
"Just need to make it tighter and slower. I am not saying put a chicane in, but you could go toward the gravel trap and turn right and then left and go down the hill.
"The problem is then if you make a left corner the barrier is on the right side and they can't move that barrier. It is a difficult one."
Factory Honda rider Marc Marquez agreed that Turn 11, which has had its banking altered slightly for this year, was an issue, but accepted nothing could be done short of changing the track layout.
"It is true that it is a very fast corner, and honestly this morning I was losing there one tenth because in FP1 you always don't want to take a risk," said Marquez.
"You are around 220km/h there and a crash is always crap. But it is so difficult to slow down the corner, because if you slow [it] down then the banking will be there more.
"You slow down the corner, the banking will be more, still it will be a fast corner. So to slow [it] down you need to change all the layout."
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