MotoGP pole sitter Jorge Lorenzo has said that he expects to use the soft tyre during tomorrows 30-lap race around Aragon.

The Spaniard left it late to secure his third pole position in a row – the first time he has achieved the feat since 2012 – using the soft-soft Michelin tyre combination on his factory Ducati. Lorenzo felt satisfaction after struggling to get the most out of the soft tyre for so long on his Ducati.

“This third pole position in a row is nice. It’s nice because in almost a year and a half I didn’t get a pole position and it was difficult to get the maximum with the soft tyres on the Ducati,” said Lorenzo.

“But little by little I understand the way to maximise the grip and I get this fourth pole position of the year and third in a row, so I am very happy.

“It was not simple as Dovi’s time was very close, they were very equal and to have so many riders in front waiting for some wheel (to tow) made it more difficult to remain concentrated and to push in the last lap.

“Luckily the group I had in front of me finally pushed and I had a few was, so I could try a little bit to improve the lap time from before.”

Lorenzo has had success running the soft front and rear tyres already this year with wins in Mugello and Barcelona. When asked if he thinks he will be able to use it again tomorrow, he said: “I think so, it’s not decided yet. It looks like I’m the only one on the Ducati who can use this tyre.

“I won in Mugello and Montmelo with this tyre, so for the moment this looks okay for my riding.”

Lorenzo was fortunate to find a gap for his hot lap with Maverick Vinales punished for cruising on the racing line and multiple riders complaining about others going slowly on the racing line. Lorenzo wasn’t impressed with what he saw during qualifying.

“In my opinion they need to penalise the riders who waits a lot on the track, because were in MotoGP and have big bikes and theoretically the best ones are in MotoGP, the ones with more experience, the older ones,” he said.

“In my opinion they need don’t need to wait to have a wheel to improve the lap times. But today we see the qualifying like a Moto3 race or the Tour de France in my opinion is shouldn’t be like this in MotoGP.”

Lorenzo spent the first nine years of his MotoGP career on a Yamaha and after seeing his old factory win four of the first seven races in 2017, it has now been over a year since Yamaha have tasted success, but Lorenzo doesn’t think it will last too much longer.

“I think MotoGP is a little bit like soccer in the way that Barcelona or Real Madrid can have three or four years bad and then sooner or later they come back,” he explained.

“Yamaha have the history and the potential to come back stronger. I think more soon than later they will arrive. 2016 was a difficult year, because we started strong with the electronics then Honda improved a little bit and they caught us.

“We were a little bit inconstant during the race, but we were very strong during the race and I got three or four victories. But we were stronger in 2015. But as I said, they will come back sooner or later.”