Dani Pedrosa takes the MotoGP pole position in Malaysia

The MotoGP World Championship has battled for pole position at the Sepang Circuit, in Malaysia, as part of the penultimate round of the 2017 season, so expectation was at its peak on the Malaysian track. In particular, we saw Dani Pedrosa rise from the ashes and claim a sensational pole.

First came the riders who failed to make the top 10 in the combined FP1-FP2-FP3 timesheets, as Álex Rins and Pol Espargaró proved the fastest and squeezed into the fight for the top 12 on the grid in Q2, while Michael Van der Mark and Loris Baz crashed out during this practice session. The top 13-22 was completed by Danilo Petrucci 13th, Scott Redding 14th, Bautista 15th, Smith 16th, Baz 17th, Lowes 18th, Rabat 19th, Barberá 20th, Abraham 21st, Van der Mark 22nd.

And then came the moment of truth in Q2, with a spectacular Dani Pedrosa who took the top spot and secured a very important pole position for the Spaniard after what he had been through in recent races. Specifically, the 26 set a time of 1:59.229. In second place was Johann Zarco, just 0.017s behind the leader, so there was maximum parity among the front-runners.

The top 12 was completed by Dovi 3rd, Rossi 4th, Viñales 5th, Lorenzo 6th, Márquez 7th, Rins 8th, Iannone 9th, Crutchlow 10th, Miller 11th, Espargaró 12th. The race promises to be a very interesting battle, considering that the Italian Dovizioso starts 3rd and Marc starts 7th in his worst qualifying result in a long time; apparently the Spaniard had problems with his soft tyres and crashed in Q2. Therefore, we can expect plenty of fighting in the early laps of the race at Sepang.

In Moto2, Franco Morbidelli is on pole, and in Moto3 it is Joan Mir, so we also anticipate an intense battle in the intermediate and small-bike categories.