Pedrosa snatches late pole in Malaysia

Dani Pedrosa took until the last moment to score pole position for the Malaysian MotoGP as Marc Marquez qualified seventh after a crash.

Valentino Rossi was fastest when the chequered flag flew at the end of Q2 but will start fourth after a scintillating end to the session, in which outside championship hope Andrea Dovizioso finished third-fastest.

Pedrosa set a 1:59.212s well after the clock had gone zero on the 15-minute session, the Repsol Honda rider securing his third pole of the season.

He was actually the fourth man to hold provisional pole after the chequered flag, with Dovizioso bumping Rossi and then Zarco bumping Dovizioso.

“Of course you have to take risks; I made a couple of mistakes in my last run,” said Pedrosa.

“I’m very happy because a third pole of the year is very positive; normally I don’t get so many poles.

“We hope tomorrow to have a dry race because yesterday in the wet we struggled a lot.”

Zarco (Tech 3 Yamaha), who had held top spot after the first runs, needed only another 0.017s to finish in first position, but will instead start middle of the front row.

For Dovizioso, who in turn was only 0.007s slower than Zarco, a front row start is important for the factory Ducati man’s title hopes as he trails Marquez by 33 points with just two races remaining.

Rossi will share Row 2 with Movistar Yamaha team-mate Maverick Viñales and factory Ducati rider Jorge Lorenzo.

Marquez crashed on his first flying lap and while he regrouped to temporarily take his Repsol Honda to third, he was not fast enough in his final run and was bumped back to seventh.

He will start next to the factory Suzukis of Alex Rins and Andrea Iannone, the former of whom topped Q1.

A crash brought Cal Crutchlow’s (LCR Honda) afternoon to an early end as he qualified 10th, with Jack Miller (Marc VDS Honda) and Pol Espargaro (Red Bull KTM) also on Row 4.

Espargaro was the other man to come through Q1 as all of the heavy-hitters had already earned direct passage to the second quarter-hour hit-out.

Michael van der Mark, filling in for ill Tech 3 Yamaha rider Jonas Folger, crashed in his first ever MotoGP qualifying session and will start last in the 22-bike field.

The second-last race of the year will run over 20 laps tomorrow from 1800 AEDT.

Qualifying: Malaysian Grand Prix

Pos	Num	Rider	Nat	Team	Bike	Time	Gap 1st/prev
1	26	Dani PEDROSA	SPA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	1’59.212
2	5	Johann ZARCO	FRA	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	1’59.229	0.017 / 0.017
3	04	Andrea DOVIZIOSO	ITA	Ducati Team	Ducati	1’59.236	0.024 / 0.007
4	46	Valentino ROSSI	ITA	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	1’59.498	0.286 / 0.262
5	25	Maverick VIÑALES	SPA	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	1’59.538	0.326 / 0.040
6	99	Jorge LORENZO	SPA	Ducati Team	Ducati	1’59.622	0.410 / 0.084
7	93	Marc MARQUEZ	SPA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	1’59.694	0.482 / 0.072
8	42	Alex RINS	SPA	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	1’59.992	0.780 / 0.298
9	29	Andrea IANNONE	ITA	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	2’00.119	0.907 / 0.127
10	35	Cal CRUTCHLOW	GBR	LCR Honda	Honda	2’00.181	0.969 / 0.062
11	43	Jack MILLER	AUS	EG 0,0 Marc VDS	Honda	2’00.326	1.114 / 0.145
12	44	Pol ESPARGARO	SPA	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	2’00.770	1.558 / 0.444
13	9	Danilo PETRUCCI	ITA	OCTO Pramac Racing	Ducati	2’00.351	Q1 / Q1
14	45	Scott REDDING	GBR	OCTO Pramac Racing	Ducati	2’00.451	Q1 / 0.100
15	19	Alvaro BAUTISTA	SPA	Pull&Bear Aspar Team	Ducati	2’00.469	Q1 / 0.018
16	38	Bradley SMITH	GBR	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	2’00.718	Q1 / 0.249
17	76	Loris BAZ	FRA	Reale Avintia Racing	Ducati	2’01.050	Q1 / 0.332
18	22	Sam LOWES	GBR	Aprilia Racing Team Gresini	Aprilia	2’01.207	Q1 / 0.157
19	53	Tito RABAT	SPA	EG 0,0 Marc VDS	Honda	2’01.228	Q1 / 0.021
20	8	Hector BARBERA	SPA	Reale Avintia Racing	Ducati	2’01.413	Q1 / 0.185
21	17	Karel ABRAHAM	CZE	Pull&Bear Aspar Team	Ducati	2’01.570	Q1 / 0.157
22	60	Michael VAN DER MARK	NED	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	2’02.376	Q1 / 0.806