Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa took a fantastic pole position for this afternoon's Malaysian GPโhis third this year, his 31st in MotoGP, and the 49th in his career.
After struggling in the wet on Friday, Dani was able to consistently improve his pace in today's sunny and hot conditions, setting the third fastest lap time in FP3 and the fifth quickest in FP4 before besting Johann Zarco and Andrea Dovizioso by 0.017โ and 0.024โ, respectively, in the last minute of an incredibly hard-fought qualifying session.
โI'm very happy with this pole, which is our third this year,โ he said. โIt's a nice feeling because I usually struggle in qualifying, but the track improved a lot with today's sunny conditions, offering good grip.โ
โBoth tyres worked very well in qualifying, so I was able to find the rhythm on my first flying lap and set a good time, and then I pushed harder and improved on my second run.โ
โI made a couple of little mistakes but it was enough for the pole, which is fantastic. I'm happy for the team, as this pole is for them. We'll have to see what the conditions are like for the race as we're still struggling in the wet, so we're really hoping for the sun tomorrow.โ
