Sepang, 18 October 2008: LCR Honda MotoGP rider Randy De Puniet rode his Michelin-shod Honda RC212V to 9th place today in the qualifying session at the 5.548 km Sepang circuit in readiness for the tomorrow’s 21-lap race. After this morning rain shower, the premier class qualifying session was held in the dry with ambient temperature of 29°C even though the first minutes of the session the track surface was still damp.

After this morning’s 11th position in the free practice, De Puniet worked on tyres choice to improve his pace clocking his best lap time of 2’03.110. The 27-year-old made good progress on race set-up but struggled a bit on qualifiers because of the slippery surface after the tropical storm. Randy will start from the third row for the Malaysian GP that gets underway at 14:00 local time. Pedrosa gained the pole position followed by Rossi and Lorenzo.

De Puniet – 9th: “It was a strange and demanding qualifying session. We came out with wet tyres but after some laps we had to switch to cut tyres because the surface started to dry up quickly. My pace on cut tyres was pretty good and I felt comfortable with the bike overall package. Then I came out on qualifiers but couldn’t improve like I expected. I really do not why because I am usually faster than this on q-tyres but do not feel worried about it. My rhythm on race trim makes me confident for tomorrow’s race even if the weather can change every minute”.

Qualifying Practice:

1 Pedrosa (2’01.548)
2 Rossi (2’01.957)
3 Lorenzo (2’02.171)
4 Hayden (2’02.192)
5 Edwards (2’02.245)
6 Dovizioso (2’02.836)
7 Stoner (2’02.953)
8 Capirossi (2’03.078)
9 De Puniet (2’03.110)
10 Hopkins (2’03.184)
11 Vermeulen (2’03.271)
12 Toseland (2’03.282)
13 West (2’03.392)
14 Melandri (2’03.835)
15 Nakano (2’04.001)
16 Guintoli (2’04.378)
17 De Angelis (2’04.679)
18 Aoki (2’04.835)
19 Elias (2’05.120)