Pedrosa on pole in Malaysia

Added on Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments

Dani Pedrosa scored pole position around the Sepang circuit in Malaysia today, as MotoGP gets ready for its penultimate round of the 2011 season.

A fierce battle at the head of the field saw a three way fight between the Repsol Honda trio throughout the qualifying session. However as the chequered flag ended the session, it was Pedrosa who secured the all important top spot with a quickest time of 2m01.462 seconds.

After narrowly missing out on his twelfth pole position this season, newly crowned World Champion Casey Stoner settled in second place ahead of tomorrow’s race. Meanwhile, their teammate Andrea Dovizioso will line up in third place, after a complete lock out of the front row of the grid for Repsol Honda.

Colin Edwards completed a strong showing to land in fourth place by the end of the session, narrowly ahead of Marco Simoncelli in fifth place. Nicky Hayden, also involved in the battle for a fourth place start, finished the session in sixth.

Hiroshi Aoyama will start tomorrow’s penultimate race of the season from seventh place, whilst Alvaro Bautista battled his way to eighth place. Valentino Rossi recovered to score a ninth place start, as Cal Crutchlow found himself with a top ten starting position in tenth place.

Still recovering from a fall just last weekend around the Phillipe Island circuit, Ben Spies battled his way through another fall to land his Yamaha Factory machine in sixteenth place.

Qualifying Positions, MotoGP, Malaysia:

Pos.	Rider	Nation	Team	Time
1	Dani PEDROSA	SPA	Repsol Honda Team	2’01.462
2	Casey STONER	AUS	Repsol Honda Team	2’01.491
3	Andrea DOVIZIOSO	ITA	Repsol Honda Team	2’01.666
4	Colin EDWARDS	USA	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	2’02.010
5	Marco SIMONCELLI	ITA	San Carlo Honda Gresini	2’02.105
6	Nicky HAYDEN	USA	Ducati Team	2’02.172
7	Hiroshi AOYAMA	JPN	San Carlo Honda Gresini	2’02.254
8	Alvaro BAUTISTA	SPA	Rizla Suzuki MotoGP	2’02.332
9	Valentino ROSSI	ITA	Ducati Team	2’02.395
10	Cal CRUTCHLOW	GBR	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	2’02.756
11	Randy DE PUNIET	FRA	Pramac Racing Team	2’02.939
12	Loris CAPIROSSI	ITA	Pramac Racing Team	2’03.077
13	Karel ABRAHAM	CZE	Cardion AB Motoracing	2’03.438
14	Hector BARBERA	SPA	Mapfre Aspar Team MotoGP	2’03.619
15	Toni ELIAS	SPA	LCR Honda MotoGP	2’03.646
16	Ben SPIES	USA	Yamaha Factory Racing	2’03.678
17	Katsuyuki NAKASUGA	JPN	Yamaha Factory Racing	2’04.072