Álex Márquez emerged victorious from the Sprint race of the MotoGP Malaysian GP. To achieve this, he took an early lead ahead of Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) and Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), surpassing the two contenders in the championship battle.
The Gresini rider stated in the official broadcast that it was a victory he sought but did not necessarily expect, expressing belief that he could be stronger in terms of race pace in Sunday’s main race:
– Today I was in a mission and the mission was to win this Sprint race. I know that for tomorrow I have a better chance because it looks like in the race pace we are really good – in the FP2 we were like this. But honestly I didn’t expect to make that difference in the Sprint. I was expecting to be with the top riders, to be with Jorge, especially, a little bit with Pecco also. Pecco just struggled a lit bit more. I did everything perfectly and I’m really happy.
Back to good performances after a challenging period for him, Márquez emphasized that he wants to keep the momentum until the end of the season: ‘We were struggling in the last races, but people forget that we were injured, we were coming back and now we are were, so we need to keep the level like this until Valencia’.