Andrea Dovizioso has vowed to give his all to hang on to
MotoGP title battlers
Jorge Lorenzo and
Dani Pedrosa after securing a hard-fought front row start at Sepang.
Dovizioso maintained the Tech 3 Yamaha team's excellent qualifying record this season as he earned the French outfit's 10th top-three result this season on the satellite M1.
Tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix will be the sixth race in succession the team will be represented on the front row.
Dovizioso had challenged Lorenzo and Pedrosa for pole, but the factory duo upped their pace in a dramatic finish to leave the Italian third following his lap in 2m 00.567s.
Chasing a seventh podium finish of the season, Dovizioso – whose best lap was just 0.039s behind Pedrosa in second – said he was “very happy” with his day's work.
“I am very happy with today's front row because it is confirmation of how strong we have been all weekend,” he said.
“I have to say a big thanks to my Monster Yamaha Tech 3 crew because in every session we have made progress with the set-up of the bike and for qualifying we made another big improvement.
“It is always good to be on the front row but the pleasing aspect is my race pace.
“I am very close to Lorenzo and Dani and my goal will be to stay with them for as long as possible tomorrow,” added Dovizioso, who mastered the greasy track conditions after rain fell earlier in day.
“With more rain earlier it meant the track was quite slippery, but normally when that is the case I am very fast and again today I have proved that.
“Hopefully it will be a dry race tomorrow but if it is raining then it will be the same for everybody and nobody has an advantage because we haven't tested on a full wet track.”