Valentino Rossi looks like he wants to take his 9th Symphony in Sepang with a win.
The Italian rider took his 7th pole position of the season, equaling Mick Doohan’s 58 pole record and the Sepang circuit lap record with a blistering lap of 2’00”58 breaking his own 2006 record (2:00.
605 on a 990cc with supersoft qualifying tires).
Jorge Lorenzo was second at 0.
569sec from Rossi with grip troubles, while Dani Pedrosa took third at 0.
736.
A frustrated Casey Stoner was left in fourth, a massive 0.
937s behind the Italian rider.
Loris Capirossi instead was happy with his fifth place on the grid, after his disastrous Australian GP race at Phillip Island and the Rizla Suzuki team being penalized for going over the engine limit.
Toni Elias took sixth and Nicky Hayden will start from seventh, half a second behind Stoner.
Randy de Puniet who is still having swelling problems with his ankle that he injured during the summer break was eighth.
Colin Edwards abdicated his usual fifth to end up ninth.
Alex DeAngelis was tenth and Andrea Dovizioso on a factory Honda was only eleventh.
Mika Kallio was twelfth, while Aleix Espargaro who’ll be riding for Pramac Ducati next year and subbing at Sepang for Niccolò Canepa took 13th and putting behind him Chris Vermeulen, Marco Melandri, James Toseland and Gabor Talmacsi.
Qualifying Times and quotes from the Fantastic Four after the jump:Valentino Rossi:“We decided a good procedure with Bridgestone so that I had a lot of time at the end to try for my best lap.
My target was to go under 2m01.
0, and on the last lap I did that.
Unfortunately, my dashboard was not working.
I looked at the giant screen and saw the 2.
00.
5 and thought No, someone’s beaten me, but it was my time, so I am very happy.
It was a monster lap.
The plan is like a normal race, but for sure I must be patient because of what we need to do.
Our bike is working well and we need to make a great start from pole and have good pace.
”Jorge Lorenzo:“The conditions were more or less the same as yesterday afternoon, but still sometimes you don’t have the same grip or the same confidence as before.
It’s not the happiest day of my life, for sure, if we continue like this, it’s going to be very difficult for tomorrow.
Fortunately, when I put on the softer tyres we made a big step forward and tomorrow is the race, so we will try for it and you never know what may happen.
”Dani Pedrosa:“We did well in the middle session but at the end I was not able to be very fast.
On one of the last laps I had some traffic, but I also made some mistakes.
That left me with one lap left, and I had the same thing.
Also the dashboard was not working.
At least it’s the front row though.
The key point here is going to be consistency.
It will be a very tough race and we will look this afternoon for a little bit more corner speed and a bit more braking.
We will see tomorrow.
At the moment though, the bike is good and the tyres are lasting well though in the heat.
”Casey Stoner:“I’m really disappointed because we should have been fighting for pole position.
I had a much better feeling with the setting at the start of the session but midway through we went to change tyres and after that we suffered from a huge vibration in the bike.
We still haven’t worked out what it is, but we need to fix it for tomorrow.
I tried the softer compound but the chattering was even worse.
I swapped to my other bike but we had a different setting in it that I hadn’t tried and I didn’t feel comfortable.
Everything that could go wrong in the crucial second part of the session did go wrong but if we can fix this problem then we’ll be in good shape for tomorrow.
Certainly I’m happy with my pace in race conditions.
”Sepang Qualifying Times:1 46 Valentino ROSSI ITA Fiat Yamaha Team Yamaha 2′00.
5182 99 Jorge LORENZO SPA Fiat Yamaha Team Yamaha 2′01.
0873 3 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 2′01.
2544 27 Casey STONER AUS Ducati Marlboro Team Ducati 2′01.
4555 65 Loris CAPIROSSI ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki 2′01.
7166 24 Toni ELIAS SPA San Carlo Honda Gresini Honda 2′01.
9187 69 Nicky HAYDEN USA Ducati Marlboro Team Ducati 2′01.
9808 14 Randy DE PUNIET FRA LCR Honda MotoGP Honda 2′02.
0989 5 Colin EDWARDS USA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 2′02.
19510 15 Alex DE ANGELIS RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini Honda 2′02.
27411 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA Repsol Honda Team Honda 2′02.
36212 36 Mika KALLIO FIN Pramac Racing Ducati 2′02.
43513 44 Aleix ESPARGARO SPA Pramac Racing Ducati 2′02.
85914 7 Chris VERMEULEN AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP Suzuki 2′03.
03215 33 Marco MELANDRI ITA Hayate Racing Team Kawasaki 2′03.
08816 52 James TOSELAND GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 2′03.
52817 41 Gabor TALMACSI HUN Scot Racing Team MotoGP Honda 2′03.
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