West expects to stay at front in race

The Kawasaki rider has qualified a career-best fifth at Sepang, having held provisional pole for much of the session.

"It was good to be up the front for most of the qualifying session and I was feeling really comfortable," said West.

"I'm actually quite disappointed I didn't stay on the front row but the main thing is I know that with this set-up, our race Bridgestones and the good feeling I've got, it's not as if I've only been on the pace for the one lap.

"So I'm pretty confident and we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Everything's working really well this weekend; it's nice."

He felt he could have qualified higher had his second qualifying tyre performed better.

"We used two different types of qualifiers and the two I didn't do so well on are the ones which are usually the best at other circuits," West said.

"Here, it was the opposite way around. The first one I used was really good but the others barely lasted a lap."

West's crew chief Fiorenzo Fanelli shared his confidence.

"Anthony's never ridden on this racetrack on a MotoGP bike so, for him, it's been completely new and, from the first practice session, we've been improving," he said.

"This morning he did many laps on a race tyre and was still getting better and better times. He was in the top five so he's riding very well, the bike's working brilliantly, and so are the tyres, so I feel he can be strong tomorrow.

"He's always at his best in the race too so, as he's starting from a good position, I'm sure he can fight for a top finish."

His Kawasaki teammate Randy de Puniet took fourth on the grid from West at the end of the session, but rued a crash that he believed stopped him qualifying higher.

"As in the past couple of races, I'd hoped for a better position but I had a small crash early in the session and had to use my second bike for quite a while after that. I had a good feeling from it, although I prefer my other bike," said de Puniet.

"I used two different types of qualifying tyre and one of them didn't work for me at all: it was impossible to finish a lap. The other one was better and I used that on my normal bike at the end, which got me this good lap time. It was so close and I'm just two tenths of a second off pole.

"We have a good base for tomorrow with the bike, and we've gone very fast on race tyres all weekend, so we should be able to do well."