Álex Márquez was the big winner of the Sprint race in Sepang! Yes, you read that right. This late morning’s race had an unexpected winner, but the truth is that the Gresini Racing rider was on top form and showed a highly competitive pace right from the start. In one lap, Francesco Bagnaia lost the lead and the second place in the race to his “worst rival”, Jorge Martín.
Everything was in place for the start of the Sprint race at Sepang, with Francesco Bagnaia starting from pole position, ahead of Jorge Martín and with Enea Bastianini on the front row. Brad Binder in seventh was the best non-Ducati rider, ahead of two others, Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Viñales.
The start went well for Bagnaia, who had “help” from Bastianini and Álex Márquez, relegating Martín to fourth. Jack Miller was one of the highlights and went from tenth to fourth at an early stage, before Mártin – still on the first lap – moved up to third.
The second lap brought more changes and Martín beat A. Márquez to take second place, but the Gresini rider returned the manoeuvre and retook second place. Who was benefiting from these battles? Bagnaia, who was already leading by 0.529s. Note the KTMs of Miller and Binder, in fourth and fifth.
Meanwhile, the first crash of the race came from Marc Márquez, with the Repsol Honda Team rider going down in 14th: it was the 27th time this season that the #93 had gone down.
And… Honda’s bad luck didn’t stop there, as Joan Mir also crashed shortly afterwards.
Back in the race, Bagnaia was leading but would probably soon have to deal with Álex Márquez. Just 0.174s separated the former from the latter, and the Spaniard had just set the fastest lap of the race so far, in 1:59.013s.
With five laps to go Bastianini – now fourth – was the first to complete a lap in 1:58.996s.
On the sixth lap, in the fourth sector, here was the confirmation: Álex Márquez was the new leader of the race and in no time? the scenario became even darker for Bagnaia as Martín took advantage and soon after moved up to second position.
Meanwhile, the broadcast images focused on Bagnaia’s bike, with something strange on the Italian’s bike:
What looked like a piece of paper, or similar, soon fell off and the Italian’s motorbike was in normal “condition”.
With two laps to go, that was the top ten:
Everything looked set for victory for the Spaniard, while at the back Bastianini acted as “guard” for Bagnaia.
Unsurprisingly, the race came to an end shortly afterwards with Álex Márquez returning to winning ways in MotoGP. In the championship standings, the gap between Bagnaia and Martín is now 11 points.