The American is determined to end his long Honda career in style this weekend, as he will leave the works Repsol squad for the factory Ducati team after this race.
But ultimately he had to settle for the outside front row spot in qualifying, behind his future teammate Casey Stoner and current teammate Dani Pedrosa.
"We're on the front row, so I guess I shouldn't be too bummed, but things had gone really good this weekend and it would've been really nice to be on pole," said Hayden.
"I thought we had a chance at it. I did a 1:32.0 and I knew to get down into the mid-1:31s I was going to have to really hang it out and push hard, and I did. I pushed a little bit too hard in a few places, I was a little bit loose."
Hayden held provisional pole for much of the session, having made some early qualifying tyre runs when rain briefly threatened mid-way through the session.
He then returned to working on his race set-up when the drizzle cleared, and felt this might have hampered his later flying laps.
"That hour went quickly this afternoon. We went out on race tyres and tried to get up to speed and get some settings," said Hayden.
"When it started to rain, the team did a great job - they had the other bike set up with qualifiers in, so I came in and used two and got in a pretty decent time then went back and tried some stuff on race tyres.
"But it's hard to go from qualifier back to race tyre, and it was a little bit sketchy."
The American was the best Michelin runner in the French company's final MotoGP qualifying session. While disappointed not to give the firm a farewell pole, he is optimistic that he can fight for victory in tomorrow's race.
"It would've been nice to be on pole today for Michelin's last race," said Hayden. "They did a lot for me.
"But all in all, we're on the front row, the team's done a great job this weekend and is working really hard for me, so we just need to try and get a result tomorrow when it really counts."
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