Sepang MotoGP qualifying
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That is it for our coverage of this lengthy qualifying - hopefully bringing forward the race by two hours ensures we don't have the same tomorrow.
Quote
Rossi: "At the end the track was drying up very quickly. I tried with the soft and is okay, was good. But maybe with this amount of water you can also go with the medium. Anyway I am happy because at one moment you think that you don't do the qualy so I have to start ninth, but like this is a lot better. I know that they anticipate the race for tomorrow so I hope for a dry race. But anyway also on the wet I feel quite good."
Quote
Zarco: "Front and rear, we started with soft-soft and we could see that Aleix went well with these two soft tyres and I tried to do it but I say it is not normal that I am so slow so I stop to move to the other bike and I asked to put the medium rear. This, from the first lap I did 2m13.0s and I knew that it is something possible, but the last lap, feeling was great, I slide on the rear in corner three and I slide on the front on corner four, and I got to the limit a few times so I lost a few tenths but I don't know if I could do the laptime ot Marc and beat him. First row is great, we had a complicated afternoon so enjoy the second place and wish a podium for tomorrow."
Quote
Marquez: "I felt really good, when I go out on wet in FP4, the feeling was not so good but then the qualy, we change a few things and improve a lot. Even when I crash I was not pushing a lot but looks like it is really sensitive the track, we see many crash. The most important is we did the pole position, even when I take the second bike I just finish the lap and I did 2m12.6s so that was faster than second [place] so it is good. We will see tomorrow because I think the dry setup our pace is quite good."
Information
Q2 results: 1 Marquez; 2 Zarco; 3 Rossi; 4 Iannone; 5 Dovizioso; 6 Miler; 7 Petrucci; 8 Rins; 9 Bautista; 10 Pedrosa; 11 Vinales; 12 A. Espargaro.
Disaster for Vinales, who ended the first three dry practices as the fastest man, but could only take 11th place in the wet.
Dovizioso's crash leaves him fifth behind Iannone, and ahead of the Pramac duo of Miller and Petrucci.
Marquez takes his seventh pole position of the season. He didn't improve at all after the crash but he still topped the session by 0.548s. He will be joined by two Yamahas, Zarco and Rossi on the front row.
Rossi temporarily goes second but Zarco takes it back.
Crash
Dovizioso crashes at Turn 9.
Iannone unhappy with Marquez, who looked to have slightly impeded the Suzuki rider.
Checkered flag
Chequered flag as Zarco moves into second, but Marquez still leads by 0.892s.
The Pramacs don't improve and they are demoted by Iannone and Dovizioso.
Both Petrucci and Miller look set to cut into Marquez's lead, but the Honda rider should stay ahead.
Not a big fall, just loses the front end while entering the right-hander. He was able to continue, and pitted for his second bike.
Crash
Marquez crashes at Turn 4!
Not a good session for Yamaha so far, Rossi is their top man in seventh but Vinales is only 11th, 4.2s off the pace.
It's still a really close battle for second, which is held by Petrucci followed by Miller and Rins.
Stopwatch
Marquez turns his small lead into a massive lead as his gap is up to 1.2s thanks to his 2m12.161s.
Crash
Espargaro's great Q1 is undone with a crash at Turn 4.
Stopwatch
Marquez takes the early lead with a 2m13.641s, but Miller and Iannone are both just half a tenth behind.
Vinales only has one bike available due to his FP4 crash.
Conditions are still definitely wet, but it usually dries quite quickly at Sepang so we may have some riders gambling on slicks later on. By some riders, I mean Jack Miller, naturally.
Green flag
Q2 underway.
t.co/8pGXfdt73i"/>#MotoGP Q1 🏁 @19Bautista and @AleixEspargaro secure their places in Q2 ⏱ #MalaysianGP 🇲🇾 t.co/8pGXfdt73i
Information
Q2 line-up: Vinales; Marquez; Miller; Pedrosa; Rins; Zarco; Petrucci; Dovizioso; Rossi; Iannone; Bautista; A. Espargaro.
Information
Q1 results: 1 Bautista; 2 A. Espargaro; 3 Redding; 4 Pirro; 5 Simeon; 6 P. Espargaro; 7 Smith; 8 Luthi; 9 Morbidelli; 10 Bradl; 11 Abraham; 12 Nakagami; 13 Syahrin.
Disaster for home hero Syahrin, who ends qualifying last.
Nice recovery from Scott Redding to third after spending most of the session dead last.
Pirro makes a mistake in sector three, he can't improve, which means Bautista and A. Espargaro advance to Q2.
Checkered flag
Chequered flag, Espargaro might just miss out on a Q2 spot as Pirro looks set to improve as well.
Aleix Espargaro had a comfortable lead up until now as Bautista demotes him by 0.024s with one minute remaining.
Crash
Luthi is the second rider to crash in this session.
Pirro narrowly steals second from Smith with three minutes on the clock.
A. Espargaro then beats Smith's benchmark by nearly a second. Smith was set to improve again and was definitely in contention for a Q2 spot in this session.
Crash
Smith crashes at Turn 11.
Stopwatch
Smith improves most during the second flying laps, the Briton is back ahead with a 2m14.332s.
He is quickly beaten by the Espargaro brothers with Aleix leading the way at the moment.
Stopwatch
First laptime of qualifying comes from Bradley Smith, a 2m16.441s.
t.co/QD4GARiksb"/>Medical Update ❌ Unfortunately @jorditorres81 has been declared unfit after suffering a left 1st base of metacarpal fracture #MalaysianGP 🇲🇾 t.co/QD4GARiksb
By: Matt Beer
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