Tony Arbolino gave himself the great chance of fighting for victory on Sunday by qualifying second for the Malaysian Grand Prix in stiflingly hot conditions.

• Conditions for the 19^th qualifying session of the year were the hottest of the weekend, with riders encountering track temperatures of 46 degrees and humidity of 60%.
• Tony Arbolino was the only rider from Elf Marc VDS Racing Team on track today as the team withdrew Sam Lowes from the Malaysian GP to give the Englishman further time to recover from his shoulder injury.

/// TONY ARBOLINO, 2^nd – 2’06.488

• Tony attacked the first session of the day, and needed just two flying laps in FP3 to improve his personal best time from Friday. The session ended well, with Tony finishing second.
• Qualifying followed the same pattern. The 22-year old sat in P1 for the first half of Q2 thanks to his time of 2’06.488, set on his first flying lap. Ai Ogura eventually bettered his time, meaning Tony missed out on pole by just 0.083s.

“We have good rhythm and can be fast”

“I’m really happy with the good level we showed today. I felt really good. We were struggling a bit in some areas but I could compensate by adjusting my riding style and this was the most important thing today. The first row is amazing and I need to thank the crew, as always. They kept believing in me and have kept pushing me in every session, every day. I feel confident. We need to improve two or three things for the pace but we have good rhythm and can be fast. I’m sure about this. The strategy tomorrow can be to just start as fast as we can and push. I’ll try to put a gap into the rest, if we’re able to. The aim today was to qualify on the front two rows so we can enter turn one in the top positions. This is will be crucial for the rest of the race.”