Hayden uncertain of Honda race pace

The world champion had to dig deep to take third on the grid after lacking pace in practice and the first part of the qualifying.

He feels his team are still trying to make up for the practice time lost to Friday's heavy rain.

"Qualifying was always going to be a bit of an unknown, there's a couple of tyres I haven't even tried yet," Hayden said.

"I quite like the track, I got up to speed pretty quickly this morning, but when it came time to start doing 1:35s, 1:34s, I haven't been able to make that next step.

"We struggled a bit in the afternoon, even on the first qualifier, and on the last one I knew that I had to reach down and take a few chances and try to pull something out.

"I had a lot of chatter but the Michelin qualifying tyre was really good. I know those guys are working hard and it hasn't been easy on them, so I appreciate them making the effort. That's encouraging."

Hayden was relieved to make it onto the front row as he expects passing to be difficult at the twisty track.

He hopes his engineers can make the changes necessary to keep him amongst the lead pack in the race.

"We squeezed on the front row, which is obviously going to be really important around here, and hopefully my guys can tweak on it tonight and we can get a little bit better," Hayden said.

"There are parts of the track where I'm not too good, and a few parts where I'm okay. I've got a lot of faith in my boys and hopefully we can come up with something and try to be in the fight tomorrow, because I'm sure it's going to be a good show.

"The atmosphere's unbelievable and I need to be a part of it, so we'll see what's up tomorrow."