Today in Malaysia, Bastianini celebrates his first win of the year – MotoGPsport.cz

Francesco Bagnaia started from the first position in the race of royal cubic capacity in Malaysia. His biggest rival in the fight for the title – Jorge Martin – started second. Iker Lecuona replaced the injured Rinse. Alvaro Bautista started on the wild card. The race was scheduled for twenty laps.

Bastianini took the lead after the start. Alex Márquez came in second and Bagnaia in third. Bezzecchi and Martin completed the top five. Unlike yesterday’s sprint, Quartarara got off to a good start – he moved up to sixth, but dropped to seventh behind Miller during the first lap. Martin was able to get back in front of Bezzecchi relatively quickly.

Bastianini continued on the first row in the second lap, but Alex Márquez was close behind. Bagnaia already had a slight loss to Alex Márquez and also had to watch out for Martin, who was already close behind him. In the third lap, Martin showed himself in front of Bagnaia for a while, but he quickly gave him back the overtake.

A lap later, Martin tried again at Bagnaia, but this time he couldn’t stay ahead of him either. In the meantime, Bastianini and Alex Márquez were running away a bit in the lead. They were already almost 1.5 seconds ahead of Bagnaia.

Joan Mir fell with sixteen laps to go. The rider is fine, he immediately got back on his machine after the accident. A round later, Oliveira ended up on the ground. He’s fine too. The order of the highest ranks did not change.

Even with fourteen laps to go, Bastianini, Alex Márquez, Bagnaia and Martin continued in the first four places. However, there were no fights between them at this time. Between the individual drivers in the first four there were approximately one-second intervals. There was an even bigger gap behind the fourth Martin (roughly two seconds), then Bezzecchi followed.

Twelve laps before the finish, Aleix Espargaro ended up on the ground, but fortunately he went his own way. There was still no change in the forehead. The fights took place only in the group behind the sixth Miller. Just behind the Australian were Fabio Quartararo, Fabio di Giannantonio and Brad Binder. And tenth Marini wasn’t particularly far behind either.

Bastianini, known as “The Beast”, held the top position even after half the race. Alex Márquez remained second. Third place still belonged to Bagnai. Martin was losing fourth place on Bagnaia. With nine laps to go, he was already more than two seconds behind Bagnaia. Brad Binder fell out of contention at the end of the top ten. The rider left after the accident. Quartararo overtook Miller and began to pass him.

Takaaki Nakagami ended up on the ground. Fortunately, he too seemed to be fine after the accident.

Even when there were six laps left to the finish line, the order of the first four places did not change and there were no fights either, the distances between the drivers in the first four rather increased. The closest was between Bastianini and Márquez, but even there the difference was about 1.5 seconds. The battle was taking place further back. Quartarara managed to catch up with fifth Bezzecchi and a little later he got in front of him.

“Beast” was the first to enter the penultimate lap. Alex Márquez, Bagnaia, Martin and Quartararo followed. The first five entered the last round in the same order. Due to the relatively large distances, it was not possible to assume that there would be any major fights in the top five in the end, if one of the drivers did not make a mistake. However, that did not happen.

Enea Bastianini drove for his first win of the year. At the same time, this is his first victory on a factory Ducati. Alex Márquez took second place. Francesco Bagnaia finished third. Jorge Martin crossed the finish line in fourth, allowing Bagnai to slightly increase his lead in the championship. He now leads by fourteen points.

The next race is already next week in Qatar.

Malaysian GP – MotoGP, race

Photo: Ducati