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• Marc Marquez has taken 5 wins and 3 second places since the Dutch TT.
• Dani Pedrosa has 1 win, 2 second places and 3 third places from his 5 visits to Sepang in MotoGP.
• Álex Rins has taken 4 wins and 4 poles from the last 6 races.
Three races in three weeks bring season end ever closer, with just four races and 100 points remaining. Marquez leads MotoGP standings by 39 points.
The MotoGP World Championship embarks upon its final stretch this weekend. It’s the final four races of the year, with 100 points at stake at GPs held in Malaysia, Australia , Japan and Valencia. The first of these contests will be held at the Sepang circuit this weekend, to which series leader Marc Marquez arrives with his biggest advantage to date. To start the weekend, however, he and the rest of the paddock will be awaiting the decision of Race Direction on the incident between Marquez and teammate Dani Pedrosa at Aragon. In Moto3 the title chase is closer, with Alex Rins on a run of two consecutive victories.
One year ago, Dani Pedrosa achieved an important victory over Jorge Lorenzo in the rain at Sepang. With a further four podiums -two second places and two thirds- from his previous five visits to Malaysia in MotoGP, he will be one of the leading candidates for the win. Repsol Honda teammate Marquez has placed either first or second at the last eight races, leading the overall standings by 39 points from Jorge Lorenzo.
Closing in on the Moto3 top spot is Alex Rins. Four wins from the last six races illustrate the great progress of the Repsol rider, who is only trailing due to a failure to take points at round two of the season. Rins is now heavily involved in the fight for the title right at the most critical point of the season. His teammate, Alex Marquez, will also have his share of limelight after establishing a foothold in the leading group –taking three consecutive podium finishes from the last three races.
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Dani Pedrosa
“I felt good in the last race riding at the front, and I look forward to finding the same feelings on the bike again in Sepang. The track has a little of everything, fast and slow corners, hard braking and long straights and the weather conditions make it hard work. Physically it’s been a hard week, I couldn’t walk for three days due to the pain in my hip, but it’s getting better every day so I’m hoping to be in perfect condition for the weekend.”
Marc Marquez
“Now we head to Malaysia for the first of the fly away races and I’m ready to get there! Sepang is a circuit I like, it’s the first track we were really able to test the Honda bike at so it will be nice to go back there and regain the feeling, and to see what we have learned over the season! I know there is a hearing set for Thursday with race direction to discuss the incident with Dani in Aragón, there is not much we can do, we need to wait and see what they say.”
Alex Rins
“The Malaysian Grand Prix is very demanding. Sepang is a very long track, with two long straights and hard braking in which if you have no references you are a bit lost. Last year the weekend went pretty well for me from the beginning, so we have to be very strong mentally again. We will have to work very hard from the first session to try to continue the run of form that we’ve had at the last few races.”
Alex Marquez
“The Sepang circuit was quite good for me last year and I think that this year, with the KTM, we have an opportunity to go even better, since the current engine gives a big advantage on the long straights there. In addition, we will have some updates there which only the top three KTMs had at Aragon, so we won’t need to push things so hard. We are very motivated and will test these new parts to see if we can improve and be closer to those at the front.”
