- 2018-11-04
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Donate to support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine ➔ MotoGP Malaysia: Marc Marquez Wins After Valentino Rossi Crashes at Sepang International Circuit
Malaysia Grand Prix witnessed Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) claimed his ninth victory of the 2018 MotoGP season at Sepang International Circuit on November 4, 2018. This result marks his 70th career win after taking victory.
2nd place was Alex Rins (Suzuki Ecstar), who stands on podium four times in 2018. 3rd place was pole sitter Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha Tech3), which was third podium of this season.
Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha) led the race, Johann Zarco followed him at 2nd and Marc Marquez behind Johann Zarco at 3rd.
Marc Marquez passed Johann Zarco in lap 10 and moved up to 2nd. The incident was happened on 16 laps, the lead man Valentino Rossi crashed at Turn 1.
After Rossi's incident, Marc Marquez moved up to 1st and won Malaysia Grand Prix. Johann Zarco was passed for 2nd by Alex Rins on the final lap at Turn 4.
Australia GP winner Maverick Vinales (Movistar Yamaha) finished 4th place and his team mate Valentino Rossi remounted and finished 18th.
3rd place starter, Andrea Iannone (Suzuki Ecstar) crashed out on the first lap, who lost the front end of his bike at Turn 15 while following Marc Marquez.
Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) was 5th, which equals his best result of a difficult 2018 season.
Marc Marquez said:
"The plan was just to try to be there at the end! I mean, I didn't have anything more. We were both riding on the limit. A really fast pace.
I was just riding by instinct and pushing on the limit. Not by using my head.
I was fighting against myself and the bike to be as close to Valentino to attack in the end.
But he was on the limit too and I saw he was starting to struggle, but there were only 4-5 laps left so it would be very close, because our level was very equal.
I nearly crashed 3-4 times during the race, but when I was only six tenths behind he did a mistake because he was a little bit wide and when you are fighting like this you don't want to lose any time, so he tried to come back on the line too quickly and crashed.
When I saw that Valentino fell, my body just relaxed and I was riding in another way, because both of us were pushing a lot.
It was a similar race like Motegi, with Andrea [Dovizioso]. We were fighting, fighting, fighting. Not many overtakes but we were riding on the limit.
I saved two or three crashes with my elbow, so I was struggling and fighting against my bike. It was nice to just finish the race in a good way.
Of course I'm happy because I won. It doesn’t matter the way that you won, I mean you want to win. Of course if you win on the last corner of the last lap the feeling is different.
But today was an extremely hard race because I felt like we did a great job all weekend, but we didn't have the perfect bike in the race.
Of course if you are already champion then you don’t have that extra pressure so I was pushing on the limit in the brake points.
I had Valentino in front and also Johann [Zarco] pushing from behind, but the motivation was to try and win at a difficult circuit for us.
We achieved it, so this is the most important."
Shell Malaysia Motorcycle Grand Prix Race Results- Marc Marquez / Repsol Honda / 40m 32.372s
- Alex Rins / Suzuki Ecstar / 40m 34.270s
- Johann Zarco / Monster Yamaha Tech3 / 40m 34.846s
- Maverick Vinales / Movistar Yamaha / 40m 37.039s
- Dani Pedrosa / Repsol Honda / 40m 38.562s
- Andrea Dovizioso / Ducati Team / 40m 43.620s
- Alvaro Bautista / Angel Nieto Team / 40m 47.983s
- Jack Miller / Pramac Ducati / 40m 51.381s
- Danilo Petrucci / Pramac Ducati / 40m 55.293s
- Hafizh Syahrin / Monster Yamaha Tech3 / 40m 59.291s
- Aleix Espargaro / Factory Aprilia Gresini / 41m 1.875s
- Franco Morbidelli / EG 0,0 Marc VDS / 41m 3.305s
- Stefan Bradl / LCR Honda / 41m 7.694s
- Takaaki Nakagami / LCR Honda / 41m 10.284s
- Bradley Smith / Red Bull KTM Factory / 41m 12.047s
- Thomas Luthi / EG 0,0 Marc VDS / 41m 14.192s
- Xavier Simeon / Reale Avintia / 41m 16.350s
- Valentino Rossi / Movistar Yamaha / 41m 30.660s
- Scott Redding / Factory Aprilia Gresini / 41m 32.563s
- source : MotoGP
