The Texan was one of 11 riders who held the top spot as the Sepang Circuit, which was completely wet at the start, dried out almost completely. Over the course of the hour the fast lap time was lowered 36 times. Riders started on wets, went to intermediates, switched to slicks, and finished with qualifying tires.
Edwards took control of the top spot with just under seven minutes to run. But as time was running out one rider after another eclipsed his mark. With his final qualifying tire, he jumped to second place after time had expired, only to see his time bested by three riders, though not by much.
When Edwards moved to second Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi was on pole. Then Rossi’s teammate Jorge Lorenzo took over second and Repsol Honda’s Nicky Hayden went to third, dropping Edwards to fourth. Edwards was dropped to fifth when Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa turned the fastest lap of the session, a 2:01.548 nearly two minutes after time had expired.
From Lorenzo to Edwards was covered by .74 secs.
“That was a pretty eventful session to say the least,” Edwards said. “I was last, first, tenth and ended up fifth and that’s how it can be on a drying track. You have tires that are right for one moment, and then a minute later that’s not the right tire and six or more guys go faster.
“At the start when it was already drying up pretty quickly, I just couldn’t get the tires to work at all in those mixed conditions. I went out on one of the hardest tires I had and it just wasn’t lasting, so I decided to sit in the pits for a bit hoping it would get to a point where it would be dry enough for slicks. It was drying really quickly, but I was worried it was going to rain again and I was going to be in big trouble because I think I was last at one point.”
Edwards was the first rider to venture out on slicks and his lap time showed it. He took the pole from Lorenzo by .054 secs., then lost it to Pedrosa 43 seconds later when the Spaniard lowered the time by .468 secs.
“I wanted to put the slicks on as soon as I could just to try and put in a decent time and improve my position in case it rained again,” Edwards said. “I only used two qualifiers and my first one was just to understand how much grip there was. The grip was pretty good although there were still a couple of little damp patches you had to watch for. It only slowed us down by a second from last year’s pole but you just had to stay on line. You couldn’t really venture off line too far.
“On my last qualifier I did a good job but I made a small mistake and that might have cost me the front row. But with the way the session started and the problems I was having with the rain tires on a drying track, I’ll definitely take a place on the second row.”
