Jorge Lorenzo has revealed his tactic to back off keep his tyres cool on the drying track helped him claim pole position during this afternoons MotoGP qualifying session at Silverstone.

The Spaniard didn’t come into the pits during this afternoons qualifying session, instead doing the whole session on wet tyres despite the drying track. Lorenzo revealed he backed off in the middle of the session to keep his wet tyres cool on the rapidly drying circuit, which gave him the grip he needed in the wet sector two, to claim the pole position.

“It was really difficult and tricky conditions because you didn’t know if the heavy rain can arrive in the middle of qualifying, this is why I tried to push to make a good lap time in the first two laps,” explained the three-time MotoGP World Champion.

“But then we didn’t have time enough, the time was very short to understand if it was better to keep with the same tyre or stop to change for new tyres. So my strategy was to keep with the same tyres so I decided to slow down a little bit on some laps to cool down the tyres and to push in the last final lap to make the best lap time possible.

“The strategy was okay, probably with new tyres I could be a little bit fastest, but I can’t complain because pole position, 1-2 the Ducati team so we are happy.”

The second qualifying session was delayed due to Tito Rabat’s crash in FP4 and subsequently needing to be air lifted to hospital. Lorenzo was one of a number of riders who was caught out at Stowe due to the aquaplaning and went through the gravel no more than twenty seconds before Rabat’s awful injury.

Lorenzo said that he spotted the rain in the distance, which allowed him to get off the gas and slow down.

“I’ve been lucky there because I saw from far that there was a lot of water in the braking so I decided to stop a lot of the speed in braking to be a little bit safe, but even doing that I couldn’t stop the bike and I went outside the track, into the gravel so I could reduce the speed enough to not hit the wall,” he explained.

“But other riders probably brake a little bit later and they weren’t as lucky as me. One of them, the unluckiest one has been Tito so we all hope for him the best with his injuries.

“It was a very scary moment. We are all a little bit worried all the riders for tomorrow in case of heavy rain, this can be a big problem for the safety of the riders. So we hope to have luck with the weather tomorrow or that in case of heavy rain we take the best decision for everyone.”

The decision that was made was to move the start of the race forward to 11:30 in a bid to get the race completed before the heaviest rain arrives. Lorenzo said he will be with the other riders when it comes to safety ahead of tomorrows race.

“It’s important issue to talk about with the new asphalt. Because we’ve raced here in the past in the rain, and it was not such a big problem in that turn (Stowe),” he said.

“But the situation is quite difficult because we arrive with more speed, there is not so much gravel or space in case of a crash and we arrive there very fast with lots of people and in heavy rain, I think there is a problem there that the water doesn’t come out the track.

“In case of heavy rain I agree not to compete and to wait or find some solution.”