Cal Crutchlow's first Italian MotoGP as a Ducati rider came to an early end🌳 when he fell from eighth place, his Desmosedici then clipping the rear wheel of an unlucky Stefan Bradl.

Crutchlow, who made a great start from✤ the second row, later revealed he had struggled with the handling of his bike from the opening corner of the race.

"From the first three corners of the race I had no feeling with the front and as soon as I opened the gas I lost the front," said Crutchlow, who had qualified a season-best sixth. "I had a moment when Pedrosa came past and every time I opened the gas in the corner it was like understeer, but it wasn'tܫ [normal] understeer that runs us wide it was the front tyre tucking under. It was a really strange feeling, not like understeer, but more like there was something wrong."

That handling in-balance left Crutchlow commenting that he was surprised his race lasted as long as it did, before the🌳 third lap fall through one of Mugello's many fast chicanes. While Crutchlow scrambled to safetꩲy, his Desmosedici slid back across the track and into Bradl, knocking the German into a highside.

"I'm so sorry for Stefan," continued Crutchlow. "Having seen his crash this morning and then making a big🤡 effort to make the race it was unfortunate that he got taken out by my bike.

"It was a scary moment because I couldn't get up. I had my arm trapped under my body and there were 15 bikes coming towards me. I didn't know which way to go and the secon๊d guy of each pair couldn't see me. The first guy would move [to avoid me] and the second guy would be coming towards me.

"I went straight up to Stefan and apologised. He𒆙 was sore because he's taken two big whacks today so I was sorry for him. I🐽 made a joke with him saying, 'If you were ahead of me you wouldn't have had a problem,' and he was laughing so I knew that he was ok.

"I went to his team and apologi༒sed as well because to have one rider in a team and have that rider be out wastes their whole weekend, becau𝐆se I crashed my bike. I'm sure that he'd do the same for me."

Afterwards Bradl, who also suffered a huge highside during morning warm-up, spoke to ltxcn.top about the incident and his physical condition.

"I am ok but of course my body isn't feeling great right now ♑but I'm happy that everything is in place and that I have no broken bones," said Bradl. "I saw Cal's bike but I didn't have enough time to avoid it. I reacted and tried to go wide but the bike is coming with a lot of speed and I had no chance.

"In a very short time I had ꦅto react and I tried to lift the bike up and go the long way around, but it wasn't enough and his bike hit me on the back wheel and I landed on my bike quite hard. It wasn't Cal's fault, he didn't want to crash𓄧, and it was unlucky for him. I accepted his apology and it was a normal racing accident."