“Simply bullshit!” Cal Crutchlow rants about tire pressure rule

– Cal Crutchlow, who was abruptly brought out of retirement by LCR-Honda at the end of May, showed his strongest performance so far since his unexpected comeback last weekend at the German Grand Prix, standing in for the injured Johann Zarco.

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In the Sunday race at the Sachsenring, Crutchlow did not finish. However, from the start until his retirement (crash in lap 22), he kept Maverick Vinales (Tech3-Yamaha) behind him and battled for laps with Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pramac-Yamaha). Such competitiveness had not been seen from Crutchlow in the Italian, Hungarian, and Dutch Grands Prix, where he regularly trailed the field.

Crutchlow is not completely satisfied with the Sachsenring race, and it is not because of his crash. If he had been able to pace the 30-lap race as he wanted, then “I probably could have kept up with Rins,” he says, referring to Yamaha factory rider Alex Rins, who finished 14th and earned two world championship points.

However, Crutchlow could not pace the race as he wanted. The reason, in his opinion, is the controversial tire pressure rule. “The air pressure in the front tire was extremely high throughout the race. I had to repeatedly slow down, attack again, slow down again. As soon as I was behind another rider, the problem occurred and I had to manage it,” describes the MotoGP returnee.

The tire pressure rule states that the air pressure in the front tire must be at least 1.8 bar for 60 percent of a Grand Prix distance. If this limit is undercut for more than 40 percent of the laps, a post-race time penalty is imposed (16 seconds in the Grand Prix). For a sprint distance, the tire pressure must be at least 1.8 bar for 30 percent of the laps, otherwise there is an 8-second penalty.

To reduce the risk of a penalty, MotoGP riders nowadays often start sprints and Grands Prix with higher tire pressure than they would actually prefer. And then exactly the problem described by Crutchlow occurs.

In 2020, when Crutchlow last raced a full season, the controversial tire pressure rule did not yet exist. It was introduced in the 2023 season, when he last competed in a MotoGP race before this year’s comeback. In the current 2026 season, Crutchlow noticed the rule negatively not only at the Sachsenring, but especially there.

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“In Brno, I was in that situation for three laps, but not, let’s say, 18 laps. This time it was only three or four laps where the tire pressure didn’t skyrocket. That was hardly manageable. It was an experience I didn’t know because I basically hadn’t raced for six years,” says Crutchlow.

Back when Crutchlow was still one of the regular riders in the MotoGP field, the tire pressure rule did not exist yet. However, the phenomenon of having to manage the air pressure in the front tire over the race distance already existed. When asked if the current situation is worse in this regard than he remembers from his full-time career, Crutchlow gives a clear answer.

“The rules are just bullshit! Let us race the way we want. I understand the safety idea behind this rule. But Michelin does a great job. They have always done so over all these years in this racing series. The rules are just a joke,” judges Crutchlow and adds: “This very rule is the reason we can’t have proper races because we can’t overtake.”

“You are just busy slowing down, then speeding up again, and so on. Let us just pace our race the way we think is right. Let us manage it ourselves,” demands the 40-year-old Brit.

However: Crutchlow’s demand will not be heard anytime soon. Because the controversial tire pressure rule will continue to exist in the MotoGP season 2027, at least initially. The tires for all teams will no longer come uniformly from Michelin but uniformly from Pirelli. However, this will not change the tire pressure rule for now, as Pirelli has already confirmed.

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