Enea Bastianini is back! The dark days are over and the ‘Beast’ is back to winning in MotoGP, and with a great performance in the Malaysian GP, with the factory Ducati Italian taking the lead in the first lap and thus beating a highly motivated Álex Márquez and the duo of title contenders, Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín.
Another race, 11 points separated Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín and another ‘take’ in the championship fight. All set for the start in Sepang!
Martín had a good start and in the first corner he seemed to come out as the leader but it was Enea Bastianini who stood out in the front, with Álex Márquez reaching second position, with Bagnaia and Martín in third and fourth respectively. Marco Bezzecchi was fifth, with Jack Miller in sixth being the fastest so far among the Ducatis, with Fabio Quartararo in seventh.
At the end of the second lap, here was the first time we truly saw a glimpse of the most anticipated duel, with Martín briefly reaching the podium spots by overtaking Bagnaia, who immediately responded and regained his position.
And this was where the fight for the title was taking place, directly, with Martín repeating the attack shortly after, with the same result: Bagnaia came out on top for now, on two occasions.
Meanwhile, on the next lap Joan Mir “took” Honda to a record: 50 crashes in a year, with #36 having his 23rd in 2023. Despite the crash, Mir seemed to be physically fine.
The race was approaching its first third and Bastianini was leading with 0.7s over A. Márquez. Bagnaia was 2.090s behind and Martín, who lost a lot of time to the Italian, was 3.002s behind the race leader.
Miguel Oliveira was the next to fall, with five laps completed, and shortly after it was Raúl Fernández. Total disaster for the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team.
With 12 laps to go in the race, this was the top ten:
And don’t think that Aprilia’s nightmare could end here! Aleix Espargaró had his third fall of the weekend and crashed, but he got back on his bike and into the race and quickly set his sights on wildcard Álvaro Bautista – 19th place – for a short time. The Spaniard even finished the race shortly after and there were three Aprilia bikes out, out of four riders who retired in total.
With the race officially halfway through, Bastianini led by 1s. over A. Márquez, with the top five remaining unchanged. Among the non-Ducati bikes, Jack Miller continued to lead Quartararo, who threatened to move up to sixth place at any moment.
A minute later, KTM suffered a setback: Quartararo passed Miller and Brad Binder crashed at turn 12.
The race was in a difficult phase with some riders making crucial mistakes: now it was Takaaki Nakagami who fell.
Entering the final six laps, the distance between Bastianini and Márquez was 1.336s. With the top four separated by 6.025s, attention focused on one of the “new” battles on track, with Bezzecchi leading Quartararo by 0.4s, who quickly reduced the gap to 0.1s.
Indeed, Quartararo moved up to fifth place: the Yamaha rider was also accompanied by Franco Morbidelli, ninth, in the top ten.
Four laps to go and it seemed like little could change: Bastianini had 1.412s over A. Márquez, while Bagnaia had 1.807s over Martín.
The confirmation soon arrived and Bastianini was back to great results in MotoGP: it was the first victory for the Italian as a factory rider.
