Britain's Cal Crutchlow has admitted he simply didn't have the pace to pull out a result in the French MotoGP, saying he didn't have a good feeling with the RC213V under him or the tyres on which it was running.

Crutchlow made a strategy error in qualifying which saw him start from 15th on the grid and the LCR Honda man said he just wasn't able to live with the leading pack, as he succumbed to rookie Fabio Quartararo with two laps to go.

"I never had a great feeling with the bike or the tyres. I was unable to stay with the guys in front of me which is normally a strong point of mine and then pick them off at the end," said Crutchlow.

"I didn't have the pace today, it's as simple as that. I didn’t come here to finish ninth this weekend. So I’m disappointed in terms of where I finished, but the positive we have to take is that we got some more valuable data on the bike.

Overall, I didn’t feel comfortable with the setting of the bike and the feeling I had with the bike and the tyres this afternoon, so we need to improve and work on that.

"We qualified in 15th and that always makes it difficult, but I got a good start and was ninth on the first lap and then finished ninth in the race.

"I wanted to reduce the gap to the leaders a little bit, but that was not possible today, so we’ll try again in Mugello.