Following his session-topping start, WithU Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow repeated his best qualifying of the year with 15th in Malaysia.

Despite a dry Sepang International Circuit for Saturday’s practice, Crutchlow suffered a crash in FP3 having tested a range of tyre options on the YZR-M1. A trip to the medical centre declared the Brit fit to continue despite pain in his right wrist after an x-ray confirming no fractures.

Battered and bruised with pain additional in his shoulder and ankle, Crutchlow was skirting on the fringes of the promotion zone as qualifying kicked off. Completing the 15-minute session two seconds faster than his Friday best and fifth overall thanks to a 1’59.256 lap, the 36-year-old is set for a fifth row start on Sunday.

“Today to be 15th on the grid in a tricky day in Malaysia is not too bad,” Crutchlow said. “To be honest, I didn’t have a clean lap at all, I could have gone faster. Anyway, to be 15th is okay.

“We have a big battle on our hands tomorrow. We need to improve our pace and we need to look at the data tonight to understand where we can be better.

“I hit my hand a little bit during the crash this morning and we also had some technical problem in FP3, and this is the reason we couldn’t put a good lap time in the morning but, overall, I feel okay and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”