Neither victory, nor leadership, nor approach to the title. The Sunday race of the Malaysian GP favored the Italian riders of the official Ducati team more than the Spanish riders of the Ducati satellites: Àlex Márquez was not eligible for the victory that Enea Bastianini took in their short-lived duel, and Jorge Martín, fourth, gave way against the leader Pecco Bagnaia, who distances himself one more point from what he had before Malaysia (now 14).
"We have been able to keep the distance with Jorge and I am happy because I have distanced him a little more," said Bagnaia, who has stopped the bleeding with the Madrid native, whom he had reached within 3 points in Japan.
The exit held surprises. Neither Bagnaia nor Martín. The one who took the lead in the race from a good start was Enea Bastianini, who jumped from third place on the grid to first in the first corner, followed by Àlex Márquez, the winner of Saturday's Sprint. Bagnaia lost his pole and was left third, while the person who lost the most was Martín, dropped from second to fifth, also surpassed by Bezzecchi. Although before the first crossing the finish line, the Madrid native regained one position, fourth, behind Pecco. Five Ducatis at the front of the race.
Bastianini, with nothing to lose and a lot to gain (his first victory), opened the pace to distance himself from everyone, although Àlex Márquez, who was also looking for his first victory on Sunday, caught up with him. The two opened a gap of 1 second over Bagnaia and Martín (v. 6/20), which grew by a second and a half (v. 8).
Although Bagnaia and Martín began to have the wild duel of the race from the fourth lap onwards with an intense, vibrant melee that had not been seen since Germany. The Madrid native tried to take third place and the Italian repelled all of his attacks.
But in a couple of laps, Martín fell behind Pecco, who with a higher pace gave him 1.6 seconds of safety margin (v. 10/20), which removed the threat from the Madrid native and allowed him to add 3 points. more provisionally. Martinator did not force himself to get closer in order to conserve tires and attempt a subsequent attack.
Having passed the halfway point of the race, Bastianini gave a small tug to get away from Márquez, whom he distanced by 1.3 seconds (v. 13/20), while Bagnaia also definitively distanced himself from Jorge Martín, 2.7 seconds behind (v. v. 14), and thus avoid final scares. The two Spaniards gave in to the better pace of the two Italians with 6 laps to go. The four of them rolled very far apart, without many attack options.
In the final stretch, Bastianini only had to consolidate his advantage over Àlex Márquez - who will have to wait for his first Sunday win -, while Martín took fourth place for granted, very far from Bagnaia (4.3s away with 3 laps left). ).
So with this small step back, the Spaniard left Malaysia one more point behind Bagnaia's lead (14), but now with only two Grand Prix ahead (74 points) to take the MotoGP title.
