World Champion takes twelfth victory of the season, something only Mick Doohan had accomplished before. Dani Pedrosa suffers two crashes and eventually retires from Malaysian GP.
Marc Marquez returned to winning ways at the Malaysian Grand Prix and continued to make history. Yesterday he broke the record for pole positions in a single season and now he has equalled Mick Doohan’s number of wins in a single campaign -also set as a Repsol Honda rider in 1997. Dani Pedrosa was unlucky at Sepang and suffered two crashes: One on the second lap when riding in second and another mid-race, when he was almost into the Top 10.
The race began with Pedrosa taking the lead, before he was overtaken by Jorge Lorenzo on the first lap. On Lap 2 the Repsol Honda rider fell at the last corner. Behind him were Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez, who had fought back from eighth place –where he had been riding after contact with Lorenzo at the opening corner.
Midway through the race, the Italian and the reigning World Champion passed Lorenzo. A lap later, Marquez took the lead after a mistake by Rossi. From that moment on, the Repsol Honda rider managed to hold onto his advantage and take his twelfth win of the year. Further back, Pedrosa had got back onboard and was putting in times to match the leaders but, after moving up from twentieth to eleventh, he crashed out definitively with seven laps remaining.
The final race of the season will be held in two weeks, as the series contests a the fourth event of the year in Spain: The Valencian Grand Prix.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
1st – 40:45.523
“This was one of the toughest races of the year for me physically and I’m happy to have equalled Mick Doohan’s record! We knew to expect this kind of weather in Malaysia but it was especially hot today and we all found it hard to finish the race. Halfway into the race the pace slowed down because I think everybody needed to take a breath! I’m happy with how I handled the race, because the first corner was a bit of a nightmare but I was able to come back to the front and stay there, whilst I cooled down my tyres and brakes. I started to attack with 10 laps remaining, then made the difference when there were 5 laps to go.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
Not classified
“I was enjoying a really good weekend, but in the race I couldn’t get the result. For some reason on lap two I lost the front end and went down. I don’t know what could have happened, because I wasn’t riding on the limit. Luckily I was able to pick the bike back up, continue the race and regain positions. I rode very well afterwards, with a good feeling, and then the same thing happened again. I wasn’t riding on the limit and I crashed a second time, in the same way as before. We are going to look at what might have happened, because it occurred twice in a row and on the same side of the tyre. I would have liked for the race to have finished in a different manner, because we had been doing a very good job all weekend, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
