A light rain shortly before the MotoGP race led a large number of riders to choose to go to the grid with wet weather tyres. However, the rain started to dry quickly causing a number of riders to switch to slicks at the end of the formation lap which meant those riders had to start from pit lane.
This resulted in only 9 of the 23 riders starting on the grid. Only three riders on the grid were on slicks (Stefan Bradl, Hiroshi Aoyama, Karel Abraham). Stefan Bradl, who swapped to slicks between the sighting and warm up laps, was the only rider on any of the first five rows.