Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo has revealed he suffered serious braking problems during today’s MotoGP qualifying session at Sepang and wasn’t able to replicate his blistering pace from free practice three.

The Spaniard was sitting at the foot of the front row until team-mate Valentino Rossi squeezed him into fourth with his final lap. Lorenzo wasn’t aware of this when he tried to enter parc ferme but was turned away by a burly IRTA official.

“From free practice four, we find some problem with the braking, when I arrived at turn four there was no brakes and that was the main problem today,” said Lorenzo, speaking at the track.

“I couldn’t brake at the same level as this morning, I couldn’t improve the laptime I made so was not a good qualifying. The power of the brake arrived suddenly in the middle, but I wasn’t able to brake on the first part and couldn’t stop unless it was a very aggressive stop, that was the main problem this afternoon.

“In every braking section I’m losing too much and I was unable to recover in acceleration what I lost on braking. It was a pity to lose the front row, but I think that if we solve this problem, we can be competitive for the race.”