Right tyre, right time puts Hayden second.

MotoGP World Championship leader Nicky Hayden was one of a number of riders fortunate enough to use a qualifying tyre in Saturday morning's final free practice session - propelling the American to second on the Sepang grid when the expected afternoon session was cancelled.

The Repsol Honda rider, who will start the Malaysian Grand Prix 25 points clear of injured team-mate Dani Pedrosa, had been just eleventh fastest on the Friday - and found 1.6secs by using a qualifying tyre at the end of the third and final free practice, later used to decide the grid order.

"I felt a lot better today than yesterday - we made some changes overnight that really helped. Hopefully we can continue in that direction tomorrow and be strong in the race. It's good to be on the front row, especially if it rains," said Nicky, before turning to the controversial decision to use practice times to form the grid: "I think maybe the grid should have been decided on world championship points - no I'm joking. If I'd have been ninth I'm sure I wouldn't have been so happy but perhaps we have to come up with something in the rule book to make things clear in this situation.

"Hopefully tomorrow we can make it up to the fans and put on a good show for them because there were some die-hard fans who waited around all day and got teased a few times when the bikes would fire up, only for the session to be cancelled at 4.15. We've still got a little work to do to be on the pace tomorrow, but we'll use the warm up and give it all we've got in the race," he added.

World champion Valentino Rossi will start ahead of Hayden with Ducati's Loris Capirossi on the other side of the front row.