Contrasting fortunes for Repsol Honda pair

In the sweltering heat of Sepang on Saturday Dani Pedrosa put his Repsol Honda RC212V on the front row of the grid for the ninth time this season, securing third place in qualifying at the Shell Advance Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix with a best effort of 2’01.254.

Meanwhile, Andrea Dovizioso will be dependent on an excellent start from 11th on the grid if he is to repeat his podium finish from last year’s race.

Dani Pedrosa – 3rd

“I’m happy to be on the front row again because, as always, this gives you a clear getaway when the start lights go out. I think we’ve got a good machine setting for the race tomorrow and we just need to adjust it a little bit during the warm up. At the end of the qualifying session I didn't make a very good job of it with the last soft Bridgestone tyre so my laptime doesn’t reflect our full potential this afternoon. First I made a couple of mistakes and then I had some traffic which caused me to lose a little bit of the concentration you need to go at maximum pace at this moment. Anyway, I’m happy to be on the front row again. It will be a very tough race, very demanding for sure, but we always look for the win and we will give all we have to make it happen. I'm very motivated for this race.”

Andrea Dovizioso – 11th

“In this morning’s practice we were in fifth place and my pace in race trim is not too bad so, even though I’ll be starting from the fourth row, I’m still hopeful for tomorrow’s race. Of course I’m disappointed to be in 11th because this is a track I really like, so a good start tomorrow is going to be essential. The track conditions gave less grip this afternoon compared to this morning and I wasn’t able to improve my laptime with the soft tyres - in fact I was faster this morning. My rhythm with the race tyre is OK, but starting from the fourth row could spoil the race. We’ve worked on traction control settings again today and this will be useful for when the tyres go off in the race - but it doesn’t help to achieve an outright fast lap on for qualifying. It’s not the qualifying result we wanted and tomorrow is going to be tough, but we’ll focus on getting off the line quickly and see what we can do in the race.”