Photography by Gold & Goose
Nearly 82,000 fans braved the searing Malaysian heat and watched history being made as Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez overcame a ragged start and then a great skirmish with the Yamaha riders of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo to score his 12th victory of the season. That equaled the record of 12 wins in a season set by Mick Doohan in 1997. Rossi, after leading major portions of the 20-lap race and battling mightily with Marquez, finally fell off the pace late and crossed the line second, 2.445 seconds behind the winner. Lorenzo rounded out the podium finishers in third, 3.5 seconds behind Marquez.
The win added yet another exclamation point to the two-time MotoGP Champion Marquez’ incredible 2014 season. Surprisingly it ended a mini-drought for Marquez – his first victory since the British Grand Prix nearly two months ago. The runner-up result for Rossi put him 12 points up on Lorenzo in their battle for second in the championship.
“I’m really happy with today, the strongest opponent was the weather, it was really hot,” Marquez said. “It was so difficult. In the beginning I was caring with the tire life, because I know at the end will be the key point. I start not so good in the first corner, but then after that I start to overtake riders – I think I was eighth or ninth. I’m really, really happy for this victory to come back here again. And definitely we can say I equal Mike Doohan’s record, so now the remain one race will be difficult, but we will try to do one more victory.”
Dani Pedrosa was perfect at the start and led into the first turn while Marquez made contact with Lorenzo, ran wide and was gobbled up by the field. Andrea Dovizioso ran second early, but Lorenzo was his usual aggressive self in the early going and passed both Dovi and Pedrosa to take over the lead.
Alvaro Bautista and Aleix Espargaro somehow tangled and crashed in turn one at the start of the second lap. Both were up and OK. Later that lap the front end got away from early leader Pedrosa at turn 15 and he slid harmlessly down. He remounted and got back into the race.
That left the Yamahas of Lorenzo and Rossi leading with a surging Marquez making up for his poor start and moving through to third. That trio began to open a gap on Dovizioso in fourth. Stefan Bradl and Cal Crutchlow battled over fifth. On lap five however, Crutchlow was out with problems with his factory Ducati. It was his third DNF in as many races.
On lap seven American Nicky Hayden crashed out of 10th place at turn nine, having lost the front end on his Drive M7 Aspar customer Honda. Hayden too, walked away from the crash.
At mid race things heated up. Rossi, who’d looked to challenge several at several corners, finally made his move on teammate Lorenzo on lap 10 and took over the lead. Lorenzo tried to charge right back, but instead got a tad sloppy allowing Marquez to take over second. Now it was Rossi and Marquez battling and on lap 12 Marquez took over the top spot. In spite of their fierce battle, Lorenzo was not able to take advantage and dropped off a few tenths from the leaders.
Karl Abraham was the next rider out with a crash, then Pedrosa went down for a second time after working his way all the way back to 11th, the heat perhaps taking a toll on riders’ concentration.
For a couple of laps Rossi applied constant pressure on Marquez. The Honda rider seemed stronger under acceleration, but Rossi was staying in the draft and showing good mid-corner speed.
With four laps to go Dovizioso seemed to be having issues with his Ducati while running fourth and both Bradl and Bradley Smith got around him. Hiroshi Aoyama fell, but was able to rejoin the race.
In the closing three laps, for the first time Marquez opened up a bit of a gap on Rossi. Now it would take a mistake on Marquez’ part for Rossi to have any chance at the win. There was no mistake and Marquez rode smoothly to victory.
Smith made a last-lap surge to move right up to Bradl’s rear wheel, but the German was sure in the final section and when Smith ran a little wide in the final turn fourth-place was decided. Pol Espargaro rode a brave race with a broken foot and was still able to bring his Monster Tech 3 Yamaha home in sixth. Yonny Hernandez was the highest scoring Ducati rider in seventh, having narrowly avoided rear-ending Pol Espargaro earlier in the race. It marked Hernandez’ best MotoGP result. Dovizioso continued to battle with some sort of bike issue and crossed the line in eighth. Hector Barbera and Scott Redding rounded out the top 10.
Rossi seemed pleased with his result, in spite of leading so many laps and eventually relenting for second.
“I’m very happy for this second place, it is so important,” Rossi explained. “Especially because we struggling very much during the weekend for find the right setting of the bike. But we keep working and this morning we did a good step and for the race also better, so my bike was very good and I enjoy a lot, because it was a great race. I battle a lot Jorge at the beginning. It was my target to stay with him and try to arrive at the front for second place in the championship and after I saw that I have a little bit better pace, so I go to front. Marc was behind, but was not extremely fast, so I think that I can win. But after he overtake me and unfortunately for me with older tires on the last laps he was a bit faster than me, so he deserved the victory.”
For Lorenzo it was his 11th podium of the season. He said it may have been fitness that cost him on this oppressing day.
“It was really difficult conditions,” Lorenzo said. “At the start on the first corner it was very exciting. Also the first lap I was really brave, overtaking three or four riders very solidly. At the beginning I feel great physically and also the bike was quite good, stopping well and good traction. But finally, little by little my fitness was not so good. Probably I wasn’t fit enough, because I train not so hard these three weeks outside Europe, so today I struggle so much. Valentino make a really good race because today Honda was so strong and he finished very close. Especially at the end he was really, really quick and I couldn’t do anything more to follow him this time.”
Valencia is the next and final stop of 2014 on November 9. Marquez will be gunning there to establish a new GP record for the most wins in a season.
Results of the Malaysian Grand Prix from Sepang International Circuit – Oct. 26, 2014
1. Marc Marquez ESP Repsol Honda Team (RC213V) 40m 45.523s
2. Valentino Rossi ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP (YZR-M1) 40m 47.968s
3. Jorge Lorenzo ESP Movistar Yamaha MotoGP (YZR-M1) 40m 49.031s
4. Stefan Bradl GER LCR Honda MotoGP (RC213V) 41m 6.757s
5. Bradley Smith GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (YZR-M1) 41m 7.806s
6. Pol Espargaro ESP Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (YZR-M1) 41m 20.191s
7. Yonny Hernandez COL Pramac Racing (Desmosedici) 41m 23.958s
8. Andrea Dovizioso ITA Ducati Team (Desmosedici) 41m 34.362s
9. Hector Barbera ESP Avintia Racing (Desmosedici) 41m 36.315s
10. Scott Redding GBR Go&Fun Honda Gresini (RCV1000R) 41m 44.611s
11. Hiroshi Aoyama JPN Drive M7 Aspar (RCV1000R) 42m 1.472s
12. Michael Laverty GBR Paul Bird Motorsport (PBM-ART) 42m 3.489s
13. Mike Di Meglio FRA Avintia Racing (Avintia) 42m 13.296s
14. Broc Parkes AUS Paul Bird Motorsport (PBM-ART) 42m 29.767s
NC
Alex De Angelis RSM NGM Forward Racing (Forward Yamaha) DNF
Danilo Petrucci ITA IodaRacing Project (ART) DNF
Dani Pedrosa ESP Repsol Honda Team (RC213V) DNF
Karel Abraham CZE Cardion AB Motoracing (RCV1000R) DNF
Nicky Hayden USA Drive M7 Aspar (RCV1000R) DNF
Cal Crutchlow GBR Ducati Team (Desmosedici) DNF
Aleix Espargaro ESP NGM Forward Racing (Forward Yamaha) DNF
Alvaro Bautista ESP Go&Fun Honda Gresini (RC213V) DNF
