"I'm really happy for this pole because it means I've already got more than in the whole of last year! Getting the pole position here is very important for the race because it's such a hard place to overtake, so I'm really happy.

We've done some good work today and my team has done a great job to set-up the bike. We've made a few small modifications, which have improved the feeling for me and I felt very confident today despite the bad conditions.

At the end it was really very difficult and we were right on the limit because there was so much water on the track, but I knew I could push a bit more and the result was this great lap.

I really hope it's dry tomorrow - for the sake of everybody - but at the moment it's doubtful so at least we can be confident that we're well prepared in the wet as well."