Francesco Bagnaia confirmed that the MotoGP World Championship season will end at the final round, as the Ducati World Champion emerged victorious from a fierce battle with championship leader Jorge Martin to win the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday.
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Bagnaia, who crashed from second in Saturday’s sprint at Sepang where Martin won to extend the Spaniard’s series lead to 29 points, won his 10th Grand Prix of the season by 3.141 seconds from Martin, with Martin now 24 points clear of second place. The final round has a maximum of 37 points available.
The penultimate Grand Prix of the season was red-flagged on the first lap after a scary accident involving Australian Jack Miller, who was taken to the circuit’s medical center by ambulance after KTM rider Fabio Quartararo’s head struck the rear wheel of Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha during his fall. In the middle of the pack in the second turn.
Miller’s KTM teammate Brad Bender appeared to lose a piece of the car’s bodywork and checked it and hit Quartararo, who in turn hit Miller, sending all three riders tumbling from their machines.
Miller was miraculously cleared and was able to return to his pit box on foot but was unable to restart the race after a 20-minute delay, while Pinder was forced to sit out with a shoulder injury.
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The restarted race exploded into life when Bagnaia, who needed to finish at least second if Martin were to win, powered up the title fight to a decider, and Martin switched positions repeatedly in the first three laps, with Bagnaia finally breaking on the fifth lap by seven-tenths. From the second and do not make any mistake after that to achieve victory.
“Heat management was the easy part today,” said Bagnaia, whose eight misses in his matches to Martin’s three proved the difference in this year’s standings.
“Jorge was very aggressive and he knew he had to leave me behind, but our speed was very good. As always in a Sunday race, I can attack, I can be more aggressive. We just need to understand why on Saturdays [in sprint races] I struggle to do the same. It’s our 10th win of the season and we’re doing great… I just have to improve a little bit on Saturdays.
“Thanks Pico [Bagnaia]“Because it makes this challenge even more difficult,” Martin said after his 38th podium finish earlier this year.
“I wanted to win and I wanted to be in front, but Pico definitely had another strategy. He was very aggressive, and I was too, and we put on a good show in the first few laps. But once he passed me, it was impossible to fight. More pressure, but I almost fell.”
Bagnaia’s teammate Enea Bastianini finished third, 10.484 seconds behind, moving one point away from third place in the World Championship standings for Ducati rider Marc Marquez, who was third behind Bagnaia and Martin in the early laps before crashing on the seventh lap, in the end. Recombination to finish 12th.
The final round of the season looks set to take place in Barcelona on November 15-17 after the Valencia Grand Prix scheduled for earlier this week was canceled due to heavy flooding in the area, with 400mm of rain falling over a year in just one year. Eight hours on Wednesday.
In the run-up to Sunday’s Grand Prix, MotoGP promoter Dorna said the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, site of the sixth round of the season in May, was close to hosting the final round of the year and the one-day post-season round. The test on November 19 was scheduled to take place in Valencia. Confirmation is expected within the next 24 to 48 hours, Dorna chief sporting officer Carlos Ezpeleta said.
