The Sepang International Circuit near Kuala Lumpur has always had one near constant feature ever since it started to host major motorsport in 1999; rain. Sooner or later the tropical climate of Malaysia leads to the kind of rain that halts proceedings whether the racing is on four wheel or two. That happened briefly before qualifying for the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix that saw the uncertainty that comes with a wet timed session. Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso claimed pole position ahead of the Yamahas of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.
With the track still wet in parts, it was a session that was not entirely indicative of the true pace of the riders and their machines with intermediate tyres being the order of the day.
Marc Marquez, for example, got bumped down to fourth place after setting his best time relatively earlier in the session to those who out-qualified him. Even in the wet conditions, the enormous straight-line speed of the factory Ducati proved to be enough of a weapon for Dovizioso to use in his bid for his second pole position of the season.
Former world champion Lorenzo had his best wet-weather qualifying session for a long time by managing to get on the front row and was beaten to second by just 0.056 seconds by Rossi.
Dovizioso, however, was able to eke out a greater advantage by out-qualifying the former seven-time MotoGP champion by 0.246 seconds.
The uncertainty around qualifying should carry over to the race tomorrow as rain is expected on Sunday as well.
Philip Island winner Cal Crutchlow had an inconsistent Saturday with a crash early in Q1 and was only barely able to advance to Q2 by finishing in 12th. By the end of qualifying, however, he was up to fifth place.
The 31-year-old Englishman has scored more points than any MotoGP rider over the last five races except for newly-crowned world champion Marquez.
Dovizioso's factory Ducati teammate Andrea Iannone was sixth with factory Suzuki's Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales in seventh and eighth. Factory Aprilia rider Alvaro Bautista, Avintia Ducati's Loris Baz, Tech 3 Yamaha's Pol Espargaro and the third factory Ducati of Hector Barbera rounded out the top 12.
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