Sepang MotoGP: Pedrosa sets the early pace ahead of Lorenzo

Pedrosa was the early pacesetter with a time of 2m00.412s, set on his third lap, and that was enough to keep him top as none of his rivals were able to beat him over the remainder of the 45-minute session.

Initially, it was a Honda 1-2 at the top of the table with Pedrosa's teammate Marquez slotting into second with a 2m00.736s ahead of the Yamahas of title rivals Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi.

The track was quite dirty, but there were no mishaps until the final 15 minutes, when Aprillia's Alvaro Bautista went off at turn 15 hairpin and at the same time Cal Crutchlow went down at turn 5 on his Castrol-liveried LCR Honda.

Then positions changed in the second run as Lorenzo split the Hondas to claim second, albeit still 0.210s off Pedrosa's P1 mark. Rossi dipped into the 2m00s for the first time on his final run, but remained fourth.

Ducati's Andrea Iannone, one of the principal heroes of last week's race at Phillip Island, initially continued his role as best of the rest behind the works Yamaha/Honda quartet, but a late improvement from Scott Redding put the British rider fifth on the timing screens.

Iannone was demoted even further when Crutchlow recovered from his fall to go back out and grab sixth. That made him the last rider to be within a second of Pedrosa's time.

Hector Barbera showed good pace on his Avintia Ducati to take eighth, while the top 10 was completed by Suzuki's Aleix Espargaro and Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati).

Practice results:

Pos.	Rider	Team	Bike	Time/Gap
1	Dani Pedrosa	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	2'00.412
2	Jorge Lorenzo	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	0.210
3	Marc Marquez	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	0.324
4	Valentino Rossi	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	0.503
5	Scott Redding	EG 0,0 Marc VDS	Honda	0.806
6	Cal Crutchlow	LCR Honda	Honda	0.823
7	Andrea Iannone	Ducati Team	Ducati	1.009
8	Hector Barbera	Avintia Racing	Ducati	1.204
9	Aleix Espargaro	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	1.329
10	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati Team	Ducati	1.505
11	Danilo Petrucci	Octo Pramac Racing	Ducati	1.545
12	Maverick Vinales	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	1.846
13	Pol Espargaro	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	1.847
14	Stefan Bradl	Aprilia Racing Team Gresini	Aprilia	1.902
15	Bradley Smith	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	1.911
16	Nicky Hayden	Aspar MotoGP Team	Honda	2.178
17	Yonny Hernandez	Octo Pramac Racing	Ducati	2.660
18	Jack Miller	LCR Honda	Honda	2.724
19	Alvaro Bautista	Aprilia Racing Team Gresini	Aprilia	2.816
20	Mike di Meglio	Avintia Racing	Ducati	2.982
21	Loris Baz	Forward Racing	Yamaha Forward	3.017
22	Eugene Laverty	Aspar MotoGP Team	Honda	3.526
23	Toni Elias	Forward Racing	Yamaha Forward	4.084
24	Anthony West	AB Motoracing	Honda	5.381
25	Damian Cudlin	E-Motion IodaRacing Team	ART	7.140