Jorge Lorenzo says he was surprised not to be able to challenge Dani Pedrosa for pole position in today's MotoGP qualifying session at Indianapolis.
The Yamaha rider was the only one able to challenge Pedrosa's Honda, but he could not knock his countryman off the top of the timesheet and eventually had to settle for second place with a lap more than half a second slower.
"We are now in the sixth or seventh race that we couldn't get the pole position, which is very strange for me because one of my best points is to do a [qualifying] lap," said Lorenzo.
But Lorenzo insists that he will still be able to challenge for victory in Sunday's race.
"We made a big step at the beginning of the session," he added. "The only thing is that we couldn't improve the laptime in the last laps, but we have our pace and we can have options to win tomorrow."