Quartararo shakes off Marquez for dramatic Malaysian MotoGP pole

Full Malaysian MotoGP qualifying results

Fabio Quartararo has secured a last-lap pole position ahead of his Petronas Yamaha’s home debut at the Malaysian MotoGP, as Marc Marquez highsides off while hunting for a tow from the rookie rider.

Throughout both runs in Q2 Marquez looked to stick to the rear wheel of Quartararo, having seen the French rider produce lap-record pace in practice, which resulted in both riders having very slow out-laps ahead of their final run.

Marquez duly kept the tow from Quartararo at the start of his last timed lap, despite briefly being split by Danilo Petrucci, but disaster struck the 2019 MotoGP world champion as he highsided off throttle at Turn 2 with a cold rear tyre having gone slowly on the out-lap trying to keep behind Quartararo.

The Repsol Honda rider landed heavily on his feet, knee and head and was seen hobbling away from the crash with his pride also dented by a poor mistake.

Back at the front Franco Morbidelli, running on his own, notched up a provisional pole position time of 1m 58.432s only to be fractionally beaten by Monster Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales who set a 1m 58.406s.

But Quartararo regained his composure after seeing off Marquez to produce a near-perfect last lap for a lap record 1m 58.303s to take pole position which triggered wild celebrations resulting in the French rider breaking off his own helmet visor.

With Quartararo taking his fifth pole position of the season at Petronas Yamaha’s home debut in the premier class, it saw Vinales and Morbidelli complete an all-Yamaha front row at Sepang, while Marquez tumbled to his worst qualifying of the season in 11^th place.

Jack Miller heads up the second row for Pramac Ducati in front of fellow Phillip Island rostrum-finisher Cal Crutchlow, with the latter progressing through Q1 for LCR Honda, with Valentino Rossi claiming sixth place for Monster Yamaha.

Suzuki’s Alex Rins leads row three ahead of Petrucci on the Ducati, as LCR Honda stand in Johann Zarco impressed for ninth place on just his second outing on the RC213V.

Andrea Dovizioso struggled to replicated the pace of the front-runners in qualifying which saw the Ducati rider down in 10^th place but ahead of Marquez with Francesco Bagnaia completing the fourth row for Pramac Ducati after suffering a heavy fall at Turn 5 moments before qualifying in FP4.

Joan Mir was the unlucky rider in 13^th place having just missed out on progressing from Q1 by 0.038s, with Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro in 14^th place.

Pol Espargaro’s attempts for a recovery saw him reach 15^th place on the grid for Red Bull KTM ahead of Avintia Ducati’s Karel Abraham and the second Aprilia of Andrea Iannone.

Following a Turn 1 tumble towards the end of FP4, Jorge Lorenzo’s struggles continues for Repsol Honda down in 18^th place only ahead of Red Bull KTM’s Mika Kallio and Tech3 KTM’s Hafizh Syahrin who complete the starting grid.

Both Tito Rabat and Miguel Oliveira have pulled out of the Malaysian round due to respective injuries.