Yamaha rider Maverick Viñales says MotoGP race control made the "right decision" to cancel qualifying for the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix on Saturday, with the heavy rain creating "impossible" conditions.
Storms during the early hours and afternoon flooded the Losail Circuit and despite the best efforts of the marshals to clear the standing water, the decision was made to cancel the session.
The grid will therefore be formed from combined practice times with Viñales starting from pole position.
"The conditions were tricky today and finally I think they made the right decision, because it was totally impossible to ride," he said.
"The conditions were mixed, there was a lot of water on the track, so I think they made the correct call. In the end, we didn’t ride for the show, but rider safety comes first.
"Today it wasn’t hard to stay focused, I was in the box the whole time. Seeing the images, it would be difficult to go out on track with that much standing water, so I was trying to stay focused in case we would go out and try, but it was better that we didn’t try it today, because it was quite tricky."
Team-mate Valentino Rossi, who starts tenth, was disappointed by the lack of track time, but is hopeful that Sunday's 30-minute practice session will enable him to get his bike where he wants it in terms of setup.
"For us, personally – we are a little bit slow and behind – so having less time on track is a problem, but that’s the way it is," commented the Italian. "We couldn’t do it any other way, because the track didn’t have the conditions required for us to try.
"To modify the bike, we will have a half-hour warm-up tomorrow. Even though it isn’t exactly held in the night, we will try to understand and afterwards we will discover if I'll have enough pace to make it a good race."
