Heavy rain midway through the prior Moto2 session led to the second 45-minute outing for the MotoGP class being delayed by an hour.
Though the rain had disappeared for the start of FP2 and a drying line was appearing, wet tyres were fitted to all motorcycles for much of the session.
Franco Morbidelli set the initial pace on his factory Yamaha with a 2m15.423s, bettering that to a 2m13.226s over the first 10 minutes of the session.
As conditions improved, so did the lap times, with Pramac’s Johann Zarco, Crutchlow, KTM’s Miguel Oliveira, Marc Marquez on the factory Honda and reigning world champion Fabio Quartararo all taking turns leading the session on wet tyres.
With six minutes remaining, Marco Bezzecchi was the first to head out on slick tyres fitted to his VR46 Ducati, with Ducati’s Jack Miller, Alex Marquez for LCR Honda and Bagnaia soon following suit.
Alex Marquez went top with a 2m08.644s, before Crutchlow produced a 2m08.436s to take over.
A final effort of 2m05.710s left Crutchlow fastest of all in FP2 by nine tenths from points leader Bagnaia.
Alex Marquez rounded out the top three from Miller, with Zarco completing the top five ahead of Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales.
Morbidelli was shuffled back to seventh having not switched to slick tyres at the end, with Joan Mir on the first of the Suzukis following him.
Quartararo stayed on wet tyres for the whole session and ended up ninth, but encouragingly spent much of it setting strong lap times in conditions that typically work against the Yamaha.
VR46 Ducati rider Luca Marini completed the top 10 from Oliveira and Australian GP winner Alex Rins, with Bezzecchi 13th from Tech 3 KTM rider Raul Fernandez and Marc Marquez – who didn’t run slicks at the end.
Aleix Espargaro’s difficult Friday continued into FP2 as he was only 21st at the end of an FP2 session in which he completed just 11 laps.
Enea Bastianini, who has an outside shot at the championship, was similarly underwhelming on the wet tyres in the drying FP2 finishing down in 22nd on his Gresini Ducati.
Pol Espargaro on the second factory Honda wasn’t classified at the end of the session having sat outside of the 105% threshold. The Spaniard also carries a three-place grid penalty into Sunday’s race after he was punished for an unsafe re-join during FP1.
MotoGP Malaysian GP - FP1 results:
| Cla | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Cal Crutchlow |
 |
Yamaha | 2'05.710 | |
| 2 |  Francesco Bagnaia |
 |
Ducati | 2'06.610 | 0.900 |
| 3 |  Alex Marquez |
 |
Honda | 2'06.896 | 1.186 |
| 4 |  Jack Miller |
 |
Ducati | 2'07.553 | 1.843 |
| 5 |  Johann Zarco |
 |
Ducati | 2'08.589 | 2.879 |
| 6 | Maverick Viñales |
 |
Aprilia | 2'09.353 | 3.643 |
| 7 | Franco Morbidelli |
 |
Yamaha | 2'09.390 | 3.680 |
| 8 | Joan Mir |
 |
Suzuki | 2'09.749 | 4.039 |
| 9 | Fabio Quartararo |
 |
Yamaha | 2'09.753 | 4.043 |
| 10 | Luca Marini |
 |
Ducati | 2'09.825 | 4.115 |
| 11 |  Miguel Oliveira |
 |
KTM | 2'09.898 | 4.188 |
| 12 | Alex Rins |
 |
Suzuki | 2'09.960 | 4.250 |
| 13 | Marco Bezzecchi |
 |
Ducati | 2'09.992 | 4.282 |
| 14 | Raúl Fernández |
 |
KTM | 2'10.392 | 4.682 |
| 15 | Marc Marquez |
 |
Honda | 2'10.411 | 4.701 |
| 16 |  Brad Binder |
 |
KTM | 2'10.485 | 4.775 |
| 17 | Jorge Martin |
 |
Ducati | 2'10.572 | 4.862 |
| 18 | Remy Gardner |
 |
KTM | 2'10.592 | 4.882 |
| 19 | Fabio Di Giannantonio |
 |
Ducati | 2'10.604 | 4.894 |
| 20 |  Tetsuta Nagashima |
 |
Honda | 2'10.639 | 4.929 |
| 21 | Aleix Espargaro |
 |
Aprilia | 2'11.433 | 5.723 |
| 22 | Enea Bastianini |
 |
Ducati | 2'11.568 | 5.858 |
| 23 | Pol Espargaro |
 |
Honda | ||
| 24 | Darryn Binder |
 |
Yamaha | ||
| View full results | |||||
