Iannone: Redding hold-up cost me Qatar pole

Iannone set personal best times in the first and second sectors of his last-second flyer before catching the satellite Pramac Ducati of Redding.

He improved on that lap, posting a 1m54.693s that was good enough for fourth overall - 0.150s down on poleman Jorge Lorenzo.

Asked by Motorsport.com to estimate how much time the Redding encounter cost him, Iannone said: "Three tenths. Because on the ideal times [I] stayed right on the top."

Indeed, the Italian finished the session with the best "ideal" lap - a laptime measure made by combining a rider's personal best sectors.

Describing the hold-up, Iannone said: "I was faster than him and I just found him in the middle, in front of me.

"When I arrive for the last lap, Scott go really slow in the last corner. And when I arrive in the braking point, he go inside.

"So this is the problem. It's better for him to follow me and not stay in front. But okay, I don't want to talk a lot about this - I understand. This is life.

"Tomorrow is the race, it's more important. And I want to focus on this first race because we have a really good possibility."

The race will be "a big test" - Dovizioso

Iannone's teammate Andrea Dovizioso, who will line up sixth on the grid, reckons nobody has a strategy set in stone for Sunday's grand prix.

"I don’t think anybody has a strategy for tomorrow, because everything is new," Dovizioso said. "No one really knows how to manage the tyres the best way, so this will be a big test to understand who is in best shape.

"We start on the second row, which was the target, but I didn’t have the perfect feeling to really push. We still have to decide the small detail and the tyres tomorrow."

Additional reporting by Jamie Klein