Pol Espargaró
The riders took to the track in hot ambient and track temperatures at 09:40 Malaysian Standard Time () for a twenty-minute warm-up session. Márquez continued his quick pace by setting the fastest lap of the session of two minutes and 00.186 seconds. He was 0.319 seconds quicker than Lorenzo in second. Rossi placed third with Pedrosa and Iannone fourth and fifth. Aleix Espargaró, Viñales, Crutchlow, Pol Espargaró and Dovizioso completed the top ten fastest riders. Barberá clashed with the front wheel on Pol Espargaró's bike at turn one and both riders fell. Di Meglio crashed at turn five and could not get back to the pit lane despite escaping with no injuries. Miller crashed at turn nine with two minutes left and his session was ended prematurely. After warm-up, race direction issued one penalty point to Barberá for his clash with Pol Espargaró. Barberá thus accumulated his fourth penalty point of the season, and he was ordered to start at the back of the grid.