Jorge Lorenzo said he had no confidence in Assen MotoGP qualifying

Lorenzo qualified 11th and will start 10th on Sunday, owing to Andrea Iannone's grid penalty, his worst result since riding badly injured at Assen following a practice crash in 2013.

Other than that weekend, it is his lowest grid position since his rookie season in 2008, when he started 17th on two occasions.

Ultimately qualifying 2.651 seconds off the pace set by his future Ducati team-mate Andrea Dovizioso, Lorenzo said a set-up change prompted by a lack of front-end confidence led to a broader lack of confidence.

In the dry, Lorenzo crashed at Turn 7 in the morning's third practice session on his way to 10th, with fifth on Friday afternoon his best result of the weekend so far.

"In the dry, maybe I wasn't as competitive as in the other races but I could be in the top five, top six," he said.

"In [the wet] free practice four I wasn't really bad, I just missed some confidence on the front - the front was closing in the middle of the right corners.

"So we changed the settings, we put more weight into the front to solve this problem. But we didn't solve the problem but we created much more spin on the rear.

"So the confidence in the full wet was not good in any place.

"In the braking, in the middle of the corner and also in acceleration it was spinning a lot, so I didn't have confidence in any place, like riding on ice or on eggs."

Lorenzo will race with the standard Yamaha frame here, and said that while the set-up change was part of the problem, a lack of grip from Michelin's wet front tyre had not helped his situation.

"They didn't give you any confidence, a lot of closing feeling and when it's really close you cannot save the crash," he added.

"It's like it's too hard for the conditions for the grip of the track.

"That's why we put more front weight, to try to get more grip on the front but we didn't gain anything and we lost rear grip.

"I didn't feel comfortable in any parts of the track."

ROSSI RISK PAYS OFF

Team-mate Valentino Rossi will start from the middle of the front row, having been one of a small group of riders to pit in qualifying for a new wet rear tyre as the track tried.

With his final flying lap, he jumped up from 11th to top initially, until Dovizioso logged his lap.

"After three laps I understood that it was very difficult to push because for me the rear moves around a lot," he said.

"I had some places in the track where it was completely dry, so the rear tyres suffered very much in these conditions.

"I risked it because I was eighth or ninth and I hoped I had two laps, but maybe one lap, but at the end it was the right choice.

"We put another rain tyre on because for me it was too early for the intermediate and it worked, I'm so happy."