Dani Pedrosa is extremely talented. He almost always is the quickest off the block and is one hell of a fighter. But he is also an amazingly unlucky guy. Some of the crashes that he has been through are nothing less than Satan’s work. How is it possible that a slight brush of Marquez’s elbow severed his traction control wire? Unbelievable.
Finally after months of bad luck, Dani boy got to be on the top of the podium at Malaysian GP. It began rather different, with Lorezno taking the lead from the start. But Pedrosa overtook him at lap 5. After that the Marquez – Lorenzo battle gave him enough breathing space to take the chequered flag by 2.7 secs.
Pole sitter Marquez had a bad start and was overtaken by both Lorenzo and Dani. But he stayed relatively calm and took the second place with 11 laps to spare. This means he took 20 vital points from the race and extended his lead over the reigning champion even further to 43 points.
It was the third win of the season for Pedrosa, who is mathematically still in the race for the championship, just 11 points adrift of Lorenzo. Valentino Rossi finished fourth, followed by Alvaro Bautista.
Here’s how the points stack up with 3 more races to go:
1. Marc Marquez (Spain) Honda 298
2. Jorge Lorenzo (Spain) Yamaha 255
3. Dani Pedrosa (Spain) Honda 244
Here is the time sheet after the race:
1. Dani Pedrosa (Spa) Repsol Honda 40 minutes 45.191 seconds
2. Marc Marquez (Spa) Repsol Honda 40:47.948
3. Jorge Lorenzo (Spa) Yamaha 40:51.860
4. Valentino Rossi (Ita) Yamaha 40:55.542
5. Alvaro Bautista (Spa) Honda Gresini 41:07.340
6. Cal Crutchlow (GB) Tech 3 Yamaha 41:07.492
7. Bradley Smith (GB) Tech 3 Yamaha 41:16.055
8. Andrea Dovizioso (Ita) Ducati 41:30.302
9. Aleix Espargaro (Spa) Aspar 41:44.455
10. Yonny Hernandez (Col) Pramac 41:46.608
Image source: wall-height.com