Following the good line set out in the last race held just a week ago in Japan, Andrea Dovizioso will start the twentieth edition of the Malaysian Grand Prix tomorrow from the front row of the starting grid. The Repsol Honda Team rider put in a good qualifying, in which he consistently rode at under two minutes and three seconds, registering a best time of 2 minutes, 1 second and 829 milliseconds, just 292 milliseconds off the pole position claimed by Jorge Lorenzo.
On the second day of practice, Andrea Dovizioso continued working on the electronic set-up of his Honda RC212V, a key factor in today’s races, which must manage the power of these machines and with it, the wear on the tyres. In this morning’s free practice, the Repsol rider finished fourth, three-tenths off the best time, with a time of 2 minutes, 2 seconds and 311 milliseconds.
In the qualifying session, Dovizioso started among the strongest, constantly appearing in the top three positions during the first half. Working on achieving a good race pace for tomorrow, the Repsol rider saw several riders close in on the top positions but his response was to climb to second place with just 6 minutes to go. Finally passed by Nicky Hayden, Dovizioso will complete the front row tomorrow with the aim of maintaining a place on the podium and trying to climb up to the step he needs and which has been so hard for him to achieve this season.
Andrea Dovizioso, 2’01.829 sec., 22 laps, 133 KM. >> Audio
“It’s always important to be on the front row – and this was actually more satisfying than the pole position in Japan because the conditions were so extreme today. The level of riders and bikes in MotoGP is so high and so the front row also means we have done a really good job so far this weekend. We have moved things on from where we were in Japan and improved our electronic set-up again – we’ve found a good direction, which is really positive. I want to say thank you to my team and to HRC for working hard to achieve this. It’s going to be a tough race because it’s so hot here, but I’m looking forward to it. For tomorrow it’s difficult to understand how the race will pan out – we’ll have to study the lap times from today to get a feeling for our rivals’ performance; qualifying doesn’t always give you the real picture of what everyone’s race pace will be. In terms of tyre choice, I think it will be the hard option for us”.
