Britain's Scott Redding has bagged his best Moto2 qualifying performance of the season so far, taking second place this morning at the Sepang MotoGP round - half a second behind poleman Pol Espargaro.
Redding, whose previous best was third at Estoril, set his 2'07.399 on only his third of 17 laps and couldn't replicate his pace as he felt the track to be a little greasy as time went on.
The MarcVDS rider's time lasted until right to session end before he was pipped by title challenger Pol Espargaro while runaway series leader Marc Marquez, who also set his quickest lap early on, rounded out the front row.
"With the chance of rain always high here this weekend I know I had to go out hard from the start. I felt pretty good with the bike from the start of the weekend, so I was pretty up for it this afternoon. We tried the other option front tyre for the first time right at the start of qualifying and it worked a lot better for me, which is why I was able to set a fast lap so early on," said Redding.
"It's a good job I did, as the track sort of went away from us as the session progressed and only Pol Espargaro was able to improve his time at the end. Tomorrow will be a long, hard race, as it always is in Malaysia. We know that grip is going to drop off pretty quickly and that I'll have to smooth out my riding style to compensate. It will be easier if I can get away at the front, so that's what we'll be looking to do. A podium tomorrow here at Sepang, a track that doesn't really suit me, would be amazing."
Bradley Smith, who is riding with two broken toes after his crash yesterday (see below), is on the end of row two with Johann Zarco and Takaaki Nakagami for company. Gino Rea ended in 22nd.
