Hayden admits 14th is 'unacceptable'

The American had been the quickest of the Ducatis on Friday, but admitted that his qualifying session had been a mess and that the result was way below the bike's potential.

"It's not good. Yesterday wasn't a disaster and this morning I was seventh - but I improved a lot this morning and reduced the gap in lap time to the front," said Hayden.

"Straight into this afternoon I tried the hard rear tyre and couldn't do a lap time. I finally went to a used soft and really didn't improve a lot, and then I had some little problems, did some out and in-laps, went out on my last real shot, made some mistakes, went straight once... it wasn't a good qualifying session. I had one soft tyre I didn't even get to use.

"I had a few problems, but regardless, 14th is not acceptable. I take the blame because this morning the team did a really good job and I thought we'd found a direction. I went from 1m36.0s to 1m35.0s this morning and thought we could at least be on the front two rows. After qualifying on the front row at Indy, it's not good."

Last year Hayden was furious to be taken out by Alex de Angelis at the first corner at Misano. With the tight first complex notorious for opening lap tangles, he acknowledged that chaos at tomorrow's start could be useful for him - provided he avoided getting caught up in it.

"I hope nobody crashes but maybe some guys will get pushed wide and give me a few spots," he said. "Not even accidents - just make a hole."

Hayden added that he was trying to stay upbeat about his chances of salvaging a result in the race, but that starting 14th would make life extremely difficult.

"Nothing's lost yet, the race ain't till tomorrow, but qualifying at this level is so important," he said.