Britain’s Cal Crutchlow was forced to take avoiding action at the beginning of yesterday’s Indianapolis MotoGP round as he went into turn two with no brakes and almost ran Monster Yamaha’s Bradley Smith off the track.

The CWM LCR man lost nine places in the first two corners but managed to scrabble back to eighth despite continuing front-brake troubles and running off the track mid-race.

“I apologised to Brad immediately as I almost took us both out of the race. It was completely my own fault, I didn’t have any temperature in the brakes, it was less than 150°C when the optimal working temperature is 800°C. I braked a little into turn one, but not much as it is a short distance, and then when I went into turn two, I had no brakes,” said Crutchlow, speaking at the track.

“I had to swerve to the left, lost seven or eight places immediately and then had to work my way back. I had good pace and was quite confident of being able to come back to Brad and Iannone, but then I ran off the track and lost another two and a half seconds.

“We had some sort of problem with the brake, I had a big vibration for the last ten laps. But no excuse, at the end of the day we didn’t have great pace all weekend. I thought I would be finishing in the top six but finished eighth. We have to go to Brno and improve. I think we could have run with the front guys for a few laps at least if we had got away with them. We were too far back. I was pushing so hard and didn’t have the best feeling for the tyres.

“We have gone in a different setup direction to suit me and we were a lot closer to Dani and Marc at the start of the season. The team is working well and we are trying our best.”