Motorcycling-Marquez takes record 13th pole in Malaysia

(Adds quotes) Oct 25 (Reuters) - Newly crowned world champion Marc Marquez of Spain clinched a record 13th pole in the MotoGP season at the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang on Saturday. Marquez, who sealed his title defence in Japan two weeks ago, also set a record time of one minute 59.791 seconds at Sepang to finish nearly two-tenths of a second ahead of Honda team mate Dani Pedrosa. Australians Mick Doohan and Casey Stoner had held the previous record of 12 pole positions in a season. "I'm also happy to have broken the record. Maybe pole positions are somewhat insignificant because they don't give you any points, but you achieve them by being the fastest rider over a single lap," Marquez told reporters. "That doesn't mean that you will be the fastest in the race, of course, so the most important thing is what happens tomorrow (Sunday)." Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo completed the front row, while Stefan Bradl and Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso qualified on the second row. Pol Espargaro of Yamaha broke his foot in a heavy crash during practice but will be assessed on Sunday morning to see whether he could race. Hiroshi Aoyama fell early in the second session of qualifying but will line up 11th on the grid. Andrea Iannone was ruled out of Sunday's race due to left arm injuries after crashing on Friday. The Italian said he would return home for further tests in the hope that he could start in the final race of the season at Valencia. "The power in my arm is really not there. I don't have a good feeling with the bike. It could be really dangerous," he said. "I am very sorry to skip this race because I wanted to finish the season well." (Writing by Ian Ransom and Julian Linden; Editing by Sudipto Ganguly)