After the ThaiT est, Cal Crutchlow has given new teammate Takaaki Nakagami a nickname – ‘TakaNakas’ – and was already impressed from initial kilometers the Japanese rookie undertook last season.
Crutchlow said then he would be faster in MotoGP than Moto2, and his opinion of the new kid on the block seems only to have grown.
“The whole team has done a great job,” said the Brit, who was fastest on Day 1 at Buriram and fourth overall, “and I want to congratulate ‘TakaNakas’, who’s done a great job at this test. He’s shown what he can do.”
In addition, “he’s competitive” was the key word from Team Boss Lucio Cechinelli ahead of the 2018 preseason, and that’s shown to be true so far. Nakagami was fastest rookie in Sepang and Thailand, and in Buriram was only 0.6 off Dani Pedrosa’s fastest lap of the event.
“I’m really satisfied,” says the man himself. “In terms of my laptime, my final position and the work we’ve done. We’ve improved, and I want to thank everyone for these tests in which we’ve kept growing.”
“To get into the top ten on the timesheets for the first time is something great, but we do have to keep working hard. I hope that in Qatar we have another positive test before the season starts.”
source: motogp.com
