Dani Pedrosa edged teammate Marc Marquez to lead a Honda one-two in the opening MotoGP practice session at Sepang.

Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo was third, albeit six tenths of a second down on Pedrosa, while Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista beat Valentino Rossi to fourth late on.

Tech 3’s Cal Crutchlow was fifth fastest, but more than one second off the ultimate pace.

Pedrosa and Marquez had started the weekend in race direction, with Marquez given one penalty point following his clash with Pedrosa in the Aragon Grand Prix. That decision means the rookie championship leader is potentially just one infraction away from being forced to start from the back of the grid. He showed little sign of tempering his natural aggression, however, pulling off a typically brave move on Nicky Hayden during the 40-minute session.

Marquez was unable to do anything about Pedrosa however, with the older Spaniard – who won at Sepang last year – hitting the front with half an hour to run with a 2m01.229s that would prove unbeaten for the remainder.

Lorenzo, who had been top until Pedrosa’s surge, had to settle for third.

Rossi had also enjoyed a spell at the top early on, but was shuffled down the order by his factory rivals and then lost fourth to Bautista in the final minutes.

Stefan Bradl beat Ducati’s Nicky Hayden to seventh, with Bradley Smith and Andrea Dovizioso rounding out the top 10 ahead of Colin Edwards, who finished top of the CRT pile.

Dovizioso pulled off an excellent save at Turn 12 in the final minute of what was otherwise an incident-free session.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap      Laps 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 2m01.229s           17 2.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 2m01.596s  +0.367s  18 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                2m01.623s  +0.394s  15 4.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         2m01.877s  +0.648s  15 5.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                2m02.039s  +0.810s  17 6.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m02.370s  +1.141s  18 7.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             2m02.421s  +1.192s  17 8.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                2m02.632s  +1.403s  17 9.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m02.725s  +1.496s  1810.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                2m03.039s  +1.810s  1511.  Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  2m03.574s  +2.345s  1412.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati         2m03.596s  +2.367s  1613.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia         2m03.773s  +2.544s  1214.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m04.273s  +3.044s  1715.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m04.425s  +3.196s  1216.  Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  2m04.703s  +3.474s  1517.  Yonny Hernandez   Pramac Ducati         2m04.785s  +3.556s  1618.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia         2m04.902s  +3.673s  1419.  Michael Laverty   PBM Aprilia           2m05.319s  +4.090s  1420.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW        2m05.638s  +4.409s  1621.  Luca Scassa       Cardion Aprilia       2m06.355s  +5.126s  1622.  Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda     2m06.693s  +5.464s  1723.  Damian Cudlin     PBM-Aprilia           2m07.642s  +6.413s  1524.  Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW        2m08.023s  +6.794s  13