Cal Crutchlow believes he would have been ‘right there’ with pole sitter Marc𝔍 Marquez had he been able to secure a tow as effective as his Honda counterpart during qualifying for the Italian MotoGP.

The Briton enjoyed an understated but impressive day at Mugello as he shrugged off a crash in FP3 – where he was also out-paced by LCR team-mate Takaaki Nakagami on the older Honda – to qualify on the second row in si𓃲xth position.

Half-a-second adrift of Honda counterpart and pole sitter Marquez, Crutchlow 𒈔says he would have been chasing a front row had he not completed his lap on his own without the time-gaining slipstream.

“I feel good actually and definitely a lot better than I did yesterday,” he said. “We decided to𝔉 focus our work on one bike and one setting which was 🐓good, because we could adjust small things from there.

“I wanted to be a bit quicker, and down into the 1’45s because that would have been there. We’re half🍎 a second behind Marquez in qualifying, but with the tow he got he probably picked up four-tenths, so we’re right there.”

A strong day all round for the LCR Ho♍nda team, Nakagami booked his place into Q2 with the fourth quickest time in FP3 en route to tenth in Q2 as the sec ond highest-placed 2018 bike.

“Of course I’m really happy about the second day today because we have improved a lot from yesterday. During qualifying I was a 😼little🐽 bit disappointed with what happened in sector four on the last lap.

“I hit the bumps and couldn💜’t hold on to the bike, so I lost a bit of time. Despite this, I was still able to improve on my best lap of the weekend.”