Cal Crutchlow Leaves Ducati for LCR Honda
Tue, 05 Aug 2014Cal Crutchlow has signed on to race for the LCR Honda team for the 2015 MotoGP season. To make the jump, Crutchlow secured an early termination to his contract with Ducati. The switch comes as a bit of a surprise after Crutchlow had confirmed he would honor the final year of his contract at World Ducati Week.
The British rider will replace Stefan Bradl to ride the Honda RC213V for the team, which will be rebranded as the CWM-LCR Honda team with the addition of British trading company CWM as new title sponsor.
In an interview with MotoGP.com, LCR team owner Lucio Cecchinello said the team offered Bradl a contract in late July after signing its sponsorship deal with CWM. When Bradl’s interested seemed to waver, the team decided to contact Crutchlow. The deal is for one year, with LCR holding an option for 2016.
“We want to thank Cal for his trust in our 2015 racing project and we are excited to line up with new Team colours thanks to the cooperation with CWM,” says Cecchinello. “In the mean time we will keep working hard to end the current season in the best way.”
Cecchinello also says the team may enter a second racer on an Open specification machine, though no rider has been confirmed as yet.
Ducati will replace Crutchlow with current Pramac racer Andrea Iannone who will join the returning Andrea Dovizioso.
As for Bradl, the German rider has been linked to Forward Racing, possibly to take replace the retiring Colin Edwards.
[Source: LCR, Ducati]
By Dennis Chung
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