2024 Malaysian MotoGP: Bagnaia forces title showdown with win over Martin
Bagnaia prevails in🌼 thrilling early battle to keep title hopes alive
Francesco Bagnaia dominated the 2024 Malaysian Grand Prix after a thrilling early battle with Jorge🌄 Martin to keep his MotoGP title hopes alive and set up a final round showdown.
With 29 po🌄ints splitting Martin from Bagnaia coming into the 20-lap gran꧋d prix, the championship could have been won by the former if he got his tally up to 38.
But Bagnaia held firm in a ꦅthrilling early battle with Martin to dominate the race by 3.141s to score his 10th grand prix win of the season.
Martin was second, with his championship lead coming down to 24 points and a fin♐al round showdown - set to be staged at Barcelona, but not yet confirmed - being💫 set up.
Enea Bastianini completed the podium for another Ducati 1-2-3, while Marc Marquez crashed ouᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚt of third on lap seven but remounted to finish 12th.
The race was red flagged on the opening lap a﷽fter a scary incident involving KTM duo Brad Binder and Jack Miller, as well as Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo a💫t Turn 2.
Binder made contact with a bike ahead of him and then clattered into 𝕴Quartararo, who had Miller on his extreme inside.
Miller had to receive trackside ꦅmedical assistance, but💮 suffered no serious injuries. Binder did not take the restart due to a physical issue.
The grand prix was res🍒tarted over 19 laps, with Bagnaia nailing his launch from pol👍e to hold off Martin, while Marc Marquez moved into third.
Martin made a brave attempt at taking the lead from Bagnaia at Turn 6, but ran a little wide aඣnd let the factory Ducati rider back through.
The championship leader made a move stick into Turn 14, and held onto first despite running wide at the last corner♌ 𓂃just seconds later.
But the Pramac rider was demoted by Bagnaia on the bra💦🌃kes into Turn 1 on lap two, with the latter holding firm after another Martin attack at Turn 4.
Ma🦩rtin retook the lead at Turn 14 and headed Bagnaia coming out of the last corner - thℱough he pair touched elbows as they rocketed across the start/finish line.
Running wide at Turn 1 on lap three, Martin let Bagnaia back into the lead, while the factory Ducat𝓡i rider resisted another raid at Turn 4 - only for Martin to dive up the insi🅷de of Turn 5.
Bagnaia carved up the inside of Martin into💫 the last c🃏orner at the end of third tour to take the lead again, and this proved to be the decisive move.
At the end of lap five, Bagnaia’s lead was up to eight tenths and continued to rise, while a cra♔sh for Marc Marquez at Turn 5 on lap seven gave Martin a comfortable gap in second.
The pai𓂃r differed on front tyre strategy, with Bagnaia on the soft and Martin on the medium. On lap 15, this appeared to be coming into play as Martin knocked Bagnaia’s lead from two seconds to 1.5s.
But an error at Turn 9 on lap 1🍌6 lost Martin eight tenths to Bagnaia and that ended his charge.
Bagnaia🐽 took the chequered flag 3.141s from Martin, with Bastianini 7.3s ꦰadrift in a lonely third.
Alex Marquez was fourth on his Gresini-run GP23, while Pedro Acosta comp𝔍leted the top five on his Tech3 GASGAS.
Quartararo took the restart after his Turn 2 incident with the KTMs and scored the first top si🔴x for a Japanese bike in a grand prix in 2024.
Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales was seventh, with Alex Rins (Yamaha), Marco🌠 Bezzecchi (VR46) and Augusto Fernandez (Tech3) rounding out the top 10.
Johann Zarco was the top Honda in 11th, while Marc Ma🐻rquez rejoined after his crash to finish 12th and hold onto third in the standings.
Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) was 13th ahead of Fra🅷nco Morbidelli, who remounted after🌸 a Turn 9 crash, and Honda’s Luca Marini.
Andrea Iannone was 17th in his first grand prix sin🐭ce 2019 for VR46, while there were retirements for Joan Mir (Honda) and Takaaki Nakagami (LCR).
