MotoGP Malaysian GP: Martin closes on title with sprint win, Bagnaia crashes

Jorge Martin has a chance to wrap up the MotoGP world championship in the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday after winning the sprint race at Sepang.

The Pramac Ducati rider’s points advantage over his title rival Francesco Bagnaia has grown from 17 to 29 points after Bagnaia crashed his factory Ducati while chasing Martin on lap three.

Martin will confirm himself as world champion in tomorrow’s grand prix if he can stretch his advantage over Bagnaia by a further nine points.

The Spaniard set up his sprint victory by getting into the lead over polesitter Bagnaia at the first corner, having made a superiorr launch from second on the grid. The two approached and entered the turn side-by-side but Martin, with the inside line, was able to edge clear at the apex.

That put the pressure back onto Bagnaia, whose points deficit meant he could take no other approach than try to overtake Martin during the course of the 10-lap race.

Bagnaia was able to shadow Martin until Turn 9 of the third lap, but then he asked too much of his Ducati in the dirty air and lost the front end.

That left Martin to take what looked like a comfortable win, although Marc Marquez (Gresini Ducati) and Enea Bastiani kept a close eye on him and tested his concentration in the intense Malaysian heat.

“It was a difficult race,” said Martin afterwards. “I had to be super precise and focused. It would have been really easy to make a mistake today.”

Just as Marquez could do nothing about Martin, so factory Ducati rider Bastianini could only shadow Marquez throughout. That allowed the eight-time world champion to grow his points advantage over fourth-placed Bastianini to 13 points.

The better part of five seconds behind the leading trio, Alex Marquez brought his Gresini Ducati machine home fourth after overtaking Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli on the second lap and holding his position from there.

The same lap two wobble that allowed Alex Marquez through also opened the door for Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo to seal what would become fifth place.

Morbidelli settled for sixth in a race that saw small gaps in the lower half of the top 10 but little in the way of overtaking activity.

Behind the Italian came a string of KTMs, with South African Brad Binder the best of them in seventh.

Fellow factory KTM rider Jack Miller held off Tech3 rookie Pedro Acosta for eighth, despite the Spaniard’s finest efforts to repeat his successful late attack on the Australian a week ago in Thailand.

VR46 rider Marco Bezzecchi completed the top 10 ahead of Alex Rins (Yamaha) and Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia).

Luca Marini was the best Honda in 15th after LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco pulled out of the race with a technical failure.

Andrea Iannone finished 19th and second from last on his MotoGP return with VR46.

Photos from Malaysian GP Qualifying and Sprint

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Cla	Rider	#		Bike	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	J. Martin Pramac Racing	89		Ducati	10	-				12
2	M. Marquez Gresini Racing	93		Ducati	10	+0.913 0.913	0.913			9
3	E. Bastianini Ducati Team	23		Ducati	10	+2.010 2.010	1.097			7
4	A. Marquez Gresini Racing	73		Ducati	10	+6.575 6.575	4.565			6
5	F. Quartararo Yamaha Factory Racing	20		Yamaha	10	+7.917 7.917	1.342			5
6	F. Morbidelli Pramac Racing	21		Ducati	10	+8.957 8.957	1.040			4
7	B. Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	33		KTM	10	+11.015 11.015	2.058			3
8	J. Miller Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	43		KTM	10	+11.834 11.834	0.819			2
9	P. Acosta Tech 3	31		KTM	10	+12.091 12.091	0.257			1
10	M. Bezzecchi Team VR46	72		Ducati	10	+12.840 12.840	0.749
11	A. Rins Yamaha Factory Racing	42		Yamaha	10	+14.901 14.901	2.061
12	A. Espargaro Aprilia Racing Team	41		Aprilia	10	+15.224 15.224	0.323
13	A. Fernandez Tech 3	37		KTM	10	+17.115 17.115	1.891
14	M. Viñales Aprilia Racing Team	12		Aprilia	10	+18.603 18.603	1.488
15	L. Marini Repsol Honda Team	10		Honda	10	+19.090 19.090	0.487
16	J. Mir Repsol Honda Team	36		Honda	10	+20.204 20.204	1.114
17	T. Nakagami Team LCR	30		Honda	10	+21.711 21.711	1.507
18	R. Fernández Trackhouse Racing Team	25		Aprilia	10	+23.814 23.814	2.103
19	A. Iannone Team VR46	29		Ducati	10	+25.898 25.898	2.084
20	L. Savadori Trackhouse Racing Team	32		Aprilia	10	+29.778 29.778	3.880
dnf	J. Zarco Team LCR	5		Honda	7	3 laps			Retirement
dnf	F. Bagnaia Ducati Team	1		Ducati	2	8 laps			Accident
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