Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow has played down his first ever MotoGP pole position, saying it is no major deal because Jorge Lorenzo wasn't in the session.

The British rider says his competitive nature means he would want to bag a pole with all of the top riders fighting over the position and added that his time wasn't as fast as last year's pace.

"To me it's not a major deal. It's great to to take it, I'm really pleased and say that I had a pole, but you want all the protagonists in there and that's the way it is. The competitive nature of me says I want all the top guys in there," said Crutchlow, speaking at Assen.

"It wasn't as fast as last year. Only because of the track condition and a wet session this morning. I did a 1'34.7 or 1'34.8 in the race last year so it's not that much faster than I can go in the race if the track condition is good.

"I struggled with the second tyre and couldn't get any heat in it. It was like it was completely cold so I had to do two warm-up laps and then push at the end. I timed it perfectly because I could see my time on the big screen and I knew how long the first split was so I counted how long it would take me to get back to the start/finish line and made it by three seconds."