Honda’s Dani Pedrosa will start Sunday’s Malaysian MotoGP on pole position at Sepang.
The Spaniard, who was fastest in all three free practice sessions, suffered a crash early in qualifying but managed to keep top spot.
Newly crowned world champion Casey Stoner qualified second, with team-mate Andrea Dovizioso nearly one-and-a-half seconds behind.
The session saw pole position switch between the Honda Repsol trio of Pedrosa, Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso.
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Pedrosa, 26, had a slight worry 12 minutes in when he crashed entering the final corner. He quickly rejoined the field - but it took him until 38 minutes from the end of qualifying to return to top spot after some jousting between Dovizioso and Marco Simoncelli’s Honda. BBC Sport
“At the beginning of the session I had a small crash on the front, so then I had to get back on the bike and I was still able to go good,” Pedrosa said after his first pole since the Czech Grand Prix in Brno. “I’m testing the two tires for tomorrow’s race, so it’s still not clear. I think everybody still has the same thing.
“But yeah, of course, working a lot on the suspension, on the chassis to get the best setup possible for tomorrow’s race. And, yeah, try hard on the pole. I was in one section coming faster but then I got some traffic; I couldn’t improve my lap time, but still able to be on pole for the second time is good, but hoping to do even better tomorrow in the race.”
Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Colin Edwards was the first non-Honda, the first non-factory bike, and the first Yamaha. It added up to his best qualifying effort of the season in fourth place. His previous best was sixth, which he did twice. It was his best qualifying effort since Valencia 2008.
San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Marco Simoncelli was fifth fastest, narrowly in front of Ducati Marlboro’s Nicky Hayden. Hayden equaled his best qualifying mark of sixth, which he first did last week in Australia. Cycle News
Hiroshi Aoyama heads up the third row, with Rizla Suzuki’s Álvaro Bautista beside the Japanese rider and Valentino Rossi (Ducati team) completing the row after crashing during the session. The Italian quickly made it back out on track to post a lap of 2’02.395 on his final of 22 laps.
Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) made it into the top ten for the first time this weekend, while a recovering Héctor Barberá (Mapfre Aspar), after a bit of fairing contact with Hayden in the session, completed 17 laps to land 14th on the grid.
An already sore Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing), who is still recovering from a highside crash in Australia last week, suffered a second fall of the day after retiring early from FP3 in the morning following a crash in that session. The Texan closed the session in 16th. motogp.com
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