Dani Pedrosa Scores First Pole of the Season

Photo courtesy Motogp.com

Dani Pedrosa continued his late-season surge by scoring his first MotoGP pole of the season Saturday at the Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix in Sepang. Pedrosa rode his Repsol Honda to a lap record 1:59.053 in spite of the hot and muggy conditions. That time was over 4-10^ths of a second faster than teammate Marc Marquez, who qualified second. It marked Pedrosa’s first pole since Catalunya last season. It was his 28^th-career pole in MotoGP.

For Marquez it was his 15th front row start of the season, although he was left frustrated after a huge moment during his second stint prevented him from making the most of his two-stop strategy.

World Championship leader Valentino Rossi rounds out the front row for Sunday’s race after qualifying third on his Movistar Yamaha. Rossi had been in fourth as the checkered flag was waved, but managed to put in his best time on his last lap to leapfrog Lorenzo on the timing screens and relegate him to fourth. There had been some fun and games between Rossi and Marquez in FP3 & FP4 as Marquez appeared to be following the Italian, much to Rossi’s chagrin, but it didn’t stop the ‘Doctor’ from going on to secure only his fifth front row start of the season by just 0.011s from his teammate.

Lorenzo will head up the second row. He couldn’t have been happy with his qualifying performance, his worst since the Dutch TT in Assen. He trails Rossi in the championship by 11 points with just two races remaining.

LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow qualified as the leading Satellite rider in fifth. The Brit set his best time on his final flying lap to claim his seventh second row start of the year. Ducati Team’s Andrea Iannone completes the second row for Sunday’s race as he once again showed good pace on the Ducati GP15.

American Nicky Hayden (Aspar MotoGP Team) will start from 19th as he out-qualified his Irish teammate Eugene Laverty in 22nd.

MotoGP qualifying at Sepang, Malaysia, Oct. 24, 2015