The LCR Honda rider became the first Briton to win in in the top division of Grand Prix motorcycling since Barry Sheene in 1981 on a wet-but-drying track two weeks ago in Brno.

After his success, Crutchlow said he believes he is a match for any other rider on the grid in such conditions - but, speaking in Silverstone, he revealed he doesn't relish wet conditions like many observers assume.

The latest weather forecasts predict a wet qualifying session, but no rain on Sunday.

“Everyone has this preconceived idea that suddenly that I’m sat in my motorhome rubbing my hands [if it rains]," said Crutchlow. "Really I’m thinking: ‘shit, it’s raining!’

“The risk is a lot higher, the track’s freezing, you get cold and wet riding. It’s not easy racing the rain. But of course, you have what you have. I’ll give 100 percent, wet or dry.

“I believe I go well around here in the rain, but it’s a difficult track in the rain. Some of the corners are like sheet ice, Turn 3 [Maggotts] being one of them.

“It’s really tricky, but you don’t know until you’re on the head half the time. We have to take it as it comes, we’ll see tomorrow.”

Late braking

Crutchlow ended the timesheets on Friday up in third place, but admitted this owed much to his choice of using the hard front tyre, and said fellow Honda rider Marc Marquez would have matched his pace using the same rubber.

“I used a different tyre to them,” explained the LCR Honda rider. “I used the ‘K’ [hard] front tyre, they used the softer one. I’m sure Marc would have been faster with the harder one.”

He went on to explain that he was having to rely on late braking to gain laptime, but even this was made trickier by a combination of less forgiving Michelin tyres and a bumpy track surface.

“With these Michelin fronts, you can’t brake in the same place as last year. You can’t take the risks. The track is a lot bumpier this year,” added Crutchlow.

“We can’t get out of the corner before because we have no rear grip or acceleration, so all we do is brake later than anyone else to get any sort of laptime.

“Then we pick the rear up, the bike locks into the corner a lock, and then we’re crashing with the front because the bike isn’t slowing down."