Johann Zarco admitted that he had to turn off the switch inside his head during the mixed conditioned in order to secure his third place start ahead of tomorrows MotoGP race at Phillip Island.

The Frenchman fought through the mixed conditions to go provisionally pole before both Marqeuz and Vinales improved further. With rain then rendering the final three minutes useless, Zarco couldn’t improve further, but was happy with third.

“It’s too much stress,” said the 28-year-old, who joins the Red Bull factory KTM team for 2019.

“Already in the box, two minutes before the start we saw almost some heavy rain, and then we tried to prepare a bike for the rain. Then I saw the guys going out with the slick tyres, so I had to go out with the slicks.

“You see the drops on the visor, on the helmet and the screen of the bike and you wonder if you can push or not. But you know the track is normally still dry, so it’s almost a switch in your mind, and this has been difficult.

“I am happy that it worked well as I had a good run after three laps. On the second run I hoped I could do even better but I then saw the lap time of Marc and I did not expect to beat it, for me it was too fast.

“But even if I didn’t improve at the end, because there was a big black cloud and this one made me a bit scared because of some more drops in turn four.

“I kept the third place and for that I am pretty happy because after being scared I can enjoy the third place.”

Despite start on the front row, Zarco doesn’t anticipate being a race winner tomorrow, but does think he has a shot at being on the podium and aiding his claims in the independent rider standings.

“I think I have some chance to be on the podium,” he said. “Because we know it’s a special track where always something is possible in Phillip Island.

“The race pace at the moment from FP1, FP2, FP3 and even FP4 was not fast enough to be on the podium, but really not far and much stronger than what I had in Japan. Now, after this good feeling I got from qualifying I want to confirm tomorrow and see if the little step was missing I can get it and cross fingers to be on the podium tomorrow.

“It would be useful to catch some points on Cal because he did a nice race in Japan and took advantage, but also on Danilo, he’s still in the race. We have a small championship together and I need to finish the race to catch points on them.”