Pedrosa not worried by pace

Pedrosa, who has taken pole at Sepang for the last two years, believes that the times will come as the set-up of his machine is improved over the weekend.

"I'm not worried about being half a second back from the fastest time at this stage - it's not so important and we have some areas to work on to improve things," he said.

"To achieve good stability under braking is the key area for us this weekend, and we'll be working to make some improvements to the set-up for tomorrow."

His team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was fifth quickest, but almost a second off Lorenzo's pace-setting time. He though, is confident of closing the gap to the Yamahas and Casey Stoner's Ducati in qualifying and the race.

"We started with a good direction and worked on some set-up options and particularly on the traction control settings," said the Italian. "This is a very important factor for Sepang so that we can be consistent during the race because there is not so much grip here and the performance of the tyres can fade as the race goes on.

"We will continue working on a few adjustments tomorrow and I'm very confident that we can improve."