The hottest MotoGP race of the season

Lorenzo cuts Rossi’s lead to 7 points while Dani Pedrosa is the man of the hour as he won ahead of Lorenzo and Rossi. Rossi will be forced to start from back of the grid in Valencia after a clash with Marquez. Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa rode an intense race at the Shell Malaysia Motorcycle Grand Prix to take his 51st GP victory in front of 88,000 fans, with Jorge Lorenzo finishing ahead of his title rival Rossi to reduce the Doctor’s lead in the standings to just 7 points with one race left. Pedrosa led from flag to flag to win by 3.612s in hot and humid conditions at the Sepang International Circuit. While Pedrosa was maintaining his lead, a battle ensued between Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez that saw the latter crash out. Race Direction reviewed the incident after the race and awarded Rossi three penalty points and he will be forced to start the final race of the season from the back of the grid.



Pedrosa enjoyed a good start and led into turn 1 from his teammate Marquez and Rossi. Lorenzo, who was starting from 4th, dropped back to sixth in the first corner but recovered to put an incredible double pass on the Ducati Team GP15’s of Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone. On lap 3 Marquez ran wide at turn 15 allowing Lorenzo into second, and soon Marquez had fallen into the grasp of Rossi in 4th. While Pedrosa and Lorenzo focused on opening up a gap on their teammates at the front, Rossi and Marquez became embroiled in one of the battles of the season. The two riders overtook each other at almost every corner allowing the two men at the front to disappear off into the distance. While Pedrosa was managing the gap at the front, Lorenzo had opened up a lead of 2.7seconds over Marquez in third by lap seven.



Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Bradley Smith pulled off a good result, crossing the line in fourth after he started from 9th on the grid. He had enjoyed a great battle with his compatriot Cal Crutchlow on the LCR Honda for the honours of leading Satellite rider. Octo Pramac Racing’s Danilo Petrucci drew his best MotoGP™ result in the dry as he finished in sixth while Aleix Espargaro won the battle of the Suzuki’s as he beat his rookie teammate Maverick Viñales to seventh by just over a tenth of a second. It was Espargaro’s 11th top ten finish of the season, while Viñales followed up his career best result of sixth at Phillip Island with seventh.



As it stands Valentino Rossi leads the MotoGP World Championship with 312 points compared to Lorenzo’s 305, with just the Valencia GP left on the 8th of November.