Malaysian MotoGP, Sepang – Sprint Race Results

*Rookie.

Alex Marquez fights his way past title contenders Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia to win the 2023 Malaysian MotoGP Sprint race at Sepang.

It was Marquez’s second Sprint victory of the season, after a wet win at Silverstone, while Martin trimmed Bagnaia’s title advantage to 11 points heading into Sunday’s full-length grand prix.

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The reigning champion led for the first half of the race but lost pace and finished with Enea Bastianini and KTM’s Brad Binder queued up behind him, ‘Bastia’ appearing to play wingman for his team-mate.

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Starting side-by-side after Bagnaia snatched pole from Martin, who fell on his final qualifying lap, it was an all-red one-two at Turn 1 with Bagnaia leading Bastianini.

But second-row starter Alex Marquez was already on the attack, demoting Martin to fourth, then diving under Bastianini a few corners later.

The #73 was close enough to try a pass on Bagnaia by lap 2, but ran wide and would remain behind the GP23 until launching a race-winning move on the brakes into the tight Turn 9 on lap 6 of 10.

Marquez broke away to win by 1.5s, leaving Bagnaia in trouble – the Italian lost second to Martin, while Bastianini and Binder spent the final laps almost tripping over each other behind the #1.

Some debris was caught on Bagnaia’s upper right wing for several laps but didn’t appear to be the cause of his woes and the Italian later admitted it was simply the maximum he could do today.

An all-Ducati top six in qualifying thus turned into a top-four Desmosedici sweep, followed by the KTMs of Binder and Jack Miller.

After suffocating their riders in the Buriram heat, Aprilias had its hastily prepared ‘pipe’ fitted to direct airflow onto their riders’ helmets when tucked behind the screen.

Maverick Vinales, the only RS-GP rider to reach Q2, finished tenth ahead of the top Yamaha of Franco Morbidelli, whose team-mate Fabio Quartararo had a disastrous opening lap, dropping from 8th to 19th.

Starting just 20th, his equal worst in MotoGP, after some messy tow antics with Morbidelli was followed by a fall in Qualifying 1, Marc Marquez was holding 13th place when he fell for the 27th time this season.

Team-mate Joan Mir soon suffered his team-mate’s fate soon after, although both rejoined to finish at the back, either side of reigning double World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista.

A left fork wing fell off Martin’s bike on the way to the grid, but it was replaced before the start.

As expected, all riders chose medium compound tyres, front and rear.

13 points had separated Bagnaia from Martin heading into the final triple header of the MotoGP season, starting at Sepang this weekend.

Momentum was back with Martin after taking a perfect double of Sprint and GP victories last time in Thailand. However, Martin was also among several riders to receive an official warning for low tyre pressure in the Buriram GP. Another infringement in the remaining rounds will result in the Pramac rider receiving a 3s post-race time penalty.

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With tyre pressure tricky to predict, varying massively depending on if a rider is leading or following, the best way Martin can now be sure of keeping future race victories is to win by a margin of at least 3s… The same applies to any other finishing position he achieves

Aside from the title fight, the big news this weekend is a wild-card entry for reigning World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista. The Spaniard, making his first MotoGP start since 2018, is riding a factory-spec Ducati GP23 in Aruba.It colours.

Bautista is not the only WorldSBK rider on the grid with Alex Rins, who missed Thailand after undergoing further leg surgery, replaced by Iker Lecuona for both Sepang and next weekend’s Qatar round.

Weather forecasts warn of a risk of afternoon rain over the weekend.