[kropotkin thinks...] - Rating The Riders, 2016: Cal Crutchlow

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The next rider to go under the microscope in our retrospective of 2016 is one of the most interesting of the year. Cal Crutchlow had a season of two halves, but up and down. Here's how we rate the LCR Honda rider's performance last year:

Cal Crutchlow – Honda – 8.5
7th - 141 points

By the time Cal Crutchlow left Le Mans, after the fifth race of the 2016 MotoGP season, his future in MotoGP was being openly questioned. He had just five points from five races, and was twentieth in the championship. He had crashed out of three races, and crashed and remounted in a fourth, in Austin. Things were looking rather bleak.

His results were in stark contrast to the talk of him possibly taking the place of Dani Pedrosa in the Repsol Honda team. Fans responded to such rumors – like Pedrosa's switch to Yamaha – with a great deal of skepticism. Why would HRC want to sign a man who couldn't even finish a race?