Dani Pedrosa takes third victory of the season at Malaysian GP. Teammate Marc Marquez places second and closes in on 2013 title.
A resounding victory went to Dani Pedrosa at the fifteenth round of the MotoGP World Championship, held today at the Sepang circuit. The Repsol Honda Team rider had a perfect race at the Malaysian GP, escaping early and crossing the finish line ahead of teammate Marc Marquez. With this result, Pedrosa cuts the gap to Jorge Lorenzo in the overall standings to 11 points and closes in on second place, whilst Marquez further consolidates his lead to 43 points and could clinch the title next weekend in Australia.
Making a good start from the second row of the grid, Pedrosa overtook four riders before reaching the first corner, sticking onto the back wheel of Jorge Lorenzo. He passed his fellow Spaniard cleanly on lap 4, then opened up a gap to cross the finish line more than two seconds ahead of Marquez. Second place eventually went to Marquez, who exchanged places with Lorenzo in an entertaining dice before leaving him behind after lap nine. The Repsol Honda Team rider leads the way in the overall standings with 298 points, 43 more than Lorenzo on 255 and 54 more than Pedrosa, who has 244.
Within just seven days, in Australia, Marc Marquez will have his first opportunity to make history in the World Championship. For the first time, the Spaniard is in with a chance of sealing the MotoGP title.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
1st – 40:45.191
“I am very happy with this win, as it is very special. My level of riding today was very good and the victory comes after a difficult week –in which I was laid up in bed and could hardly move. To come here and win is fantastic, so thanks to all my team! It is a pity about what happened in Aragon, because we had the pace and the same chance of the win as we did here. However, we can’t keep looking back; we need to continue on and try to carry our form into the final races.”
Marc Marquez >> Audio
2nd at 2.757 sec.
“These twenty points are very important and I’m really happy with how the race went today. I had a nice, fun battle with Lorenzo, but at the same time I could see that Dani was opening up a gap. When I finally managed to overtake Jorge and make the pass stick, I tried to reduce the distance that Dani had put between us. However, I saw that it was too risky to do so. From that moment on, I decided to focus on keeping Lorenzo at bay, because the goal here was to finish the race ahead of him. We did what we came here to do, so we are very happy!”
