Fausto Gresini says his rider Toni Elias's crash in yesterday's Catalunya Grand Prix happened because the Spaniard was having to put everything on the line just to stay in touch with the top ten.
Gresini Honda has had a very difficult season so far, but Elias provided some relief with an excellent fifth on the grid for his home race.
However he soon fell back in the grand prix, and was running 11th when he fell at the end of the backstraight after ten laps.
"We're trying to help our riders as much as we can to improve and I think you can see from Toni's crash that he is giving everything he has too," said Gresini.
"We've taken a small step forward from Mugello but the situation is still difficult."
Elias said there was no obvious reason for the accident.
"I was riding on the limit today to try and finish tenth and that tells you everything about our situation," he said.
"I didn't make any mistakes when I crashed - I wasn't going any faster and I didn't brake any harder than I had done on the previous laps, the bike just let go and that was it."
The Spaniard, who races a works specification bike, had earlier voiced his frustration about a lack of updates arriving from the factory. Although there are no upgrades immediately on the horizon, Elias said he hoped he could at least improve his race settings in today's test session.
"We've shown we can do a fast lap but we need to improve our race pace so that is the objective for the test, even though we have no new parts to try."