Having set the fastest time in FP3 and the combined free practice timesheets, Yamaha racing's Valentino Rossi was motivated to do his passionate Malaysian fans proud again in Q2 and quickly headed towards the pit lane exit, in the midst of the rider field.
His first flying lap put him in seventh place and he briefly moved up to fifth on his next attempt, but was pushed back to eighth as he made his way back to the pit box.
With four minutes on the clock the Doctor was back for a second run at the 5.5 km long circuit. He had time for two more tries and was determined to make the most of them.
He set a 1'59.498s to take over pole briefly, but late efforts from his rivals after the flag came out relegated him to fourth position, 0.286s from first. Unable to improve on his last lap, the Italian will start today's race from the second row of the grid.
"In general it was a good day, because already from the morning I felt good with the bike,โ he said. โInto qualifying we were still working, because the level of the top five or six riders was very close, it was very balanced, we're all the same. I tried to push, my lap was good, I rode well.โ
โThe lap time was OK, I saw P1 at that moment, but after that the others improved. Starting from P4 is a good position, but we have to work on the balance of the bike because I'm not fast enough yet in some places. Like always, the tyre decision and the weather conditions will be very important.โ
โFor me it's still open which tyre to use on the front and for the rear, we have to decide if we go with the medium or the hard and also the combination between the two, it depends. First of all, I hope for good weather tomorrow, so we can try to race with the slicks."
