Spain's Dani Pedrosa has set the fastest MotoGP qualifying lap at Sepang today with a 2'01.262 and leads an all-Repsol Honda front row with new champion Casey Stoner in second and Andrea Dovizioso bagging third.
It is Pedrosa's second pole position of the year and he set it after a small crash right at the start of the session when he lost the front going into the last corner.
The top three are covered by just two-tenths of a second, with the gap between Pedrosa and Stoner just three one-hundredths after an hour on track. The recently-deemed-too-old Colin Edwards took fourth place and heads row two after lapping in 2'02.100.
The Monster Yamaha man is easily the fastest of the YZR-M1 machines as the factory bike of Ben Spies languishes in 16th. The Texan crashed this morning and hurt his already injured his ribs only lob it again at turn ten in qualifying, sliding off in slow-speed lowside. Only replacement rider and temporary team-mate Katsuyuki Nakasuga is slower.
San Carlo Honda's Marco Simoncelli nipped in front of leading Ducati Nicky Hayden right at the end of the session to take fifth while Hiro Aoyama, who was as high as fourth at half distance, is seventh and at the top of row three.
Alvaro Bautista, who is flying solo after John Hopkins' withdrawal, is in eighth just ahead of Valentino Rossi's Marlboeo Ducati. The Doctor was also a faller, losing the front on the bumps in turn nine just after Stoner saved the exact same accident a few laps earlier.
Rossi is suffering less than in previous rounds and is under a second off the pace. On his final lap, The Doctor was only three-tenths off the pace when he entered the third sector but then lost another six-tenths between there and the line, so Jerry Burgess has a section of track to work on.
Britain's Cal Crutchlow hauled himself up to tenth with his 2'02.756 ahead of the two Pramac Ducatis of Randy De Puniet and Loris Capirossi. Karel Abraham rounds out the Bologna contingent in 13th with Hector Barbera and Toni Elias heading Spies at the rear.
