Championship contender Jorge Lorenzo cut a frustrated figure despite sealing his fourth pole of the season at the Japanese MotoGP on Saturday.

The Yamaha rider goes into the race at Motegi trailing Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi by 14 points, and he gave himself a chance of beating his rival on Sunday as he snatched pole by 0.081 seconds.

Lorenzo had enjoyed free practice in Japan with the fastest times in all four sessions, but he was put under pressure in qualifying as Rossi finally found the right settings.

Ultimately Lorenzo found enough to sneak ahead of the Italian with his final lap, but he rued costly decisions that he felt would have increased his advantage.

"I am very happy with the pole position but maybe I did a mistake in choosing the strategy," said the Spaniard. "Today it probably was a bit better to just make two tyres [changes] and don't show in this case the wheel to Valentino [Rossi], who is our strong rival at this moment. 

"Apart from making the pole position I was always the fastest and had a little gap, but then they improved the setting I believe and this helped him to improve so much the lap time. 

"The second tyre probably helped him to be a little bit faster but anyway we have to learn from these mistakes in strategy for the future to be a little bit more clever."

Lorenzo is riding in Japan with a shoulder injury after a training accident, but he says his condition is improving all the time and he expects to be fine for the race.

He added: "I am very happy about the shoulder because five days ago I was very worried about the pain and the condition, but luckily everything improved so much. 

"The improvement has maybe been a little bit slower because you stress the shoulder riding the bike, but anyway today I feel better than yesterday and probably tomorrow I will be even better."