Pedrosa leads Repsol Honda clean sweep in Sepang qualifying

Dani Pedrosa was the main protagonist of the second consecutive day of practice at the Sepang circuit after dominating the last free practice session that took place this morning and achieve the pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix in the qualifying. The Repsol rider will start from the first position of the grid in a first row monopolized by the Repsol Honda Team riders, where Casey Stoner will be in second place and Andrea Dovizioso third.

After the good start he had yesterday, Pedrosa kept setting the pace in this second-to-last round of the World Championship. In the third free session, the Repsol rider was the only one able to lap under two minutes and two seconds, two tenths ahead of Marco Simoncelli, who was second. Behind the Italian, Andrea Dovizioso, signed the third fastest time and Casey Stoner was fourth.

In the timed session, a crash suffered by Dani Pedrosa in the first minutes of the practice seemed that it might stop the Repsol rider, who saw how the front-end of his bike blocked in the last corner of the circuit, a long left-hand corner before reaching the main straight. In that moment Andrea Dovizioso was leading the times sheets, but by mid session Pedrosa had returned to the track with his second bike and, after improving his times steadily, took the lead of the classification.

In the following lap, the Spaniard broke again the two minutes and two seconds barrier, although fifteen minutes before the end he saw Dovizioso trying to fight for the fastest time with him. Only a few laps later, Stoner joined the battle for the pole position, showing the great level of the Repsol Honda Team riders in Sepang.

The World Champion took the first place, but five minutes from the end, Pedrosa improved his register by another three tenths and stopped the clock in a definitive 2 minutes, 1 second and 462 thousandths, that gave him his second pole position of the season.

Dani Pedrosa FP3 – 2:01.769, 16 laps, 89 km. QP – 2:01.462, 21 laps, 117 km.
“It was a very difficult session, extremely hot, I couldn’t breathe inside the helmet. We had a small crash in the front that I didn’t expect, but was able to go back and go faster and take my second pole of the season.

I thought I would be able to improve a little more at the end and get closer to the time I did yesterday, but I found some traffic on my final run. Anyway, it’s good to be on pole and I hope our race pace can be even better. We have to work on the set up and make a good rear tyre choice because our rivals are also very strong.

It’s going to be very physically demanding for everybody. To have three Repsol Honda riders on the front row is very good, but we cannot forget the other rivals and we must keep focused to finish the weekend in the best way”.

Source: Repsol Media