Cal was invloved in a podium battle with Dovizioso and Rossi at the rain-hit and exciting French MotoGP race.
The conditions were treacherous at the start of the 28-lap race and Cal was involved in the most intriguing battle on the legendary Bugatti circuit with nine-times World Champion Valentino Rossi.
Along with teamate Dovizioso they exchanged numerous overtakes to the delight of a partisan French crowd who were willing both riders on to claim a home rostrum for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad.
Cal briefly took third to head Rossi and Dovizioso followed him through before slipping back to 5th in the battle for the final podium place.
On lap 19 Cal's fantastic bid for a maiden MotoGP podium came to a disappointing end. Crutchlow was right on the back of Rossi's rear wheel when the front-end of his YZR-M1 slipped away at the second corner.
Cal remounted and despite losing 34 seconds he was still able to finish comfortably inside the top 10 in eighth to retain his fourth place position in the World Championship classification.
Cal's post race thoughts
“I'm not happy to have crashed while I was fighting for the podium, but the consolation is that at least I was battling for the top three again."
"Being quickest in the warm-up this morning meant I was confident going into the race but I wasn't really aggressive at the start."
"It was a great battle with Andrea and Valentino though but I seemed to miss out on a bit of speed on the straight compared to them. That meant I had to make up all my time in the corners."
"It was a shame I crashed because I was fighting with Valentino and he finished second. There was a chance of the podium today but at least I was there and I lost so much time after the crash that to still finish eighth is a bonus really."
"Now we go to Barcelona knowing it will be tough but I will looking to be battling for the podium again.”
Herve Poncharal – Team Manager
“That was a really exciting race and I don't think the French fans can say that Andrea and Cal didn't put on a spectacular show and do their best to get a podium in our home race. We were strong in the dry but when it rained we were also optimistic and it was a truly great fight between Andrea, Cal and Valentino. They showed tremendous r espect to each other, making hard but clean overtakes in really difficult conditions. It isn't good for my health but certainly good for TV. At some point we thought both of them might have beaten Valentino today, but he picked up his pace and showed that he is still a class act. Cal was pushing hard to try and score his first podium and he crashed but he still managed to finish and credit to him for that. Andrea also wanted his first podium for Tech 3 and Yamaha and even though there was a big gap to Pedrosa behind him, he pushed to fight with Valentino and Casey and crashed. That can happen but I want to thank both of them for showing incredible fighting spirit. The final result wasn't what we hoped, but we still scored some points and both of them showed in the wet and dry what a competitive package we have in 2012.”