Marc Márquez crushes in Sepang: he could already win in Qatar

Marc Márquez has made the penultimate acceleration towards his tenth world title in Malaysia. With an incontestable victory in Sepang, by crushing from the start, with more than 4 seconds of advantage over Pedro Acosta, the Catalan soars in the championship with 44 points of advantage - the maximum and will be able to win the crown in the next Qatar GP, the penultimate round of the World Championship.

Jorge Martín's absence in Lusail - if he does not recover in a week from his radius fracture in his right hand - could pave the way for the Catalan to his eighth MotoGP title. In Malaysia, where he had not won since 2018, Marc did his best with a very solid race to make the path to the crown as short as possible.

"When it's the day, it's the day and you have to use it, I went out in time attack mode in each lap, looking for the limits, and I had a perfect race. I keep focus, I keep pushing, there are few races left but many moments, I have to maintain super concentration," commented a radiant Márquez, on the verge of his tenth world title.

At the start, this time, unlike the Sprint, it was Marc Márquez who imposed his strength against his brother Àlex, who started from pole. The two Cervera drivers fought for first position in the first corners, but it was the 93 who took the race lead when the little one went wide. Bastianini surprised by provisionally placing third, but in the second lap Acosta already climbed to the last podium position, ahead of the two Aprilias of Bezzecchi and Ogura.

Marc subjected the Malaysian race to the monotony of his pace, pulling hard and lap by lap building a distance that would allow him to ward off the threat. Thus, in the first quarter of the test (v. 5) he was already 5 tenths away from his brother, at 1-2 tenths per lap; halfway through the race (v. 10), the margin was already 1.4 seconds. He was interested in the fact that there was trouble behind him, but everyone was very stretched out.

Marc was riding comfortably at the front of the race and Acosta began to take positions to try to overtake Àlex Márquez who was having a hard time keeping up and was falling behind his brother. Once halfway through the race, the Murcian jumped on top of the Catalan and snatched second position from him with a clean interior in a slow corner.

Pedro was 1.8 seconds behind Marc, too far away to venture to chase the 93, riding at similar paces. Although there was a lot of racing left. Bezzecchi tried to follow in Acosta's footsteps, but Àlex closed the door to the podium.

With a cushion of 2.6 seconds to face the last five laps, the multiple champion only had to manage his income and discount the turns to the finish line to secure the 25 points of victory that takes him to a substantial distance of 44 points over Jorge Martín with three grand prizes remaining (111 points).

The mathematics is simple: to be champion in Qatar, next weekend, he would have to leave with at least 74 points advantage, so he would need to add 30 more than Martín (for example, a victory in the Lusail Sprint -12- and a second place in the Sunday race -20-) and 8 more than Bezzecchi... assuming that the Aprilia native from Madrid recovers in time and can race on the desert circuit qatari.

Marc Márquez celebrated the victory on the lap of honor by carrying a Spanish flag with a black crepe, in tribute to the 69 victims of the Toledo train accident. Nor did he uncork the sparkling wine on the podium, as a sign of respect.