He may have already locked up the 2014 World Championship but Marc Márquez has his sights set on the single season record for victories after picking up his twelfth win at Sepang. The Catalan rider started on pole position but dropped as far back as eighth on the first lap as Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo, his Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa and Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso were the top three at the end of lap one with Valentino Rossi and Stefan Bradl rounded out the top five.
Pedrosa would fall on the final corner of the second lap as Márquez would make his way up to third that lap behind Lorenzo and Rossi and those three would breakaway from the field and have their own battle at the front for most of the race. The Majorcan Lorenzo would lead the first nine laps before his teammate Rossi and Márquez would pass him. On the eleventh lap, Márquez would take the lead from Rossi and the two of them would go at for the next seven laps before the Italian started to fade.
Márquez won by 2.445 seconds over Rossi with Lorenzo rounding out the podium, 3.508 seconds back of his fellow Spaniard. Bradl finished fourth, matching his best finish of the season for a third time. Bradley Smith finished fifth, his third top five in the last four races. Pol Espargaró finished sixth despite suffering an broken bone in his left foot in Saturday practice. Pol is now sixth in the championship. Yonny Hernández scored a career-best seventh place finish while Andrea Dovizioso faded to eighth after having brake issues. Héctor Barberá finished ninth, his third consecutive points paying finish after having only two in the first fourteen races. Scott Redding finished tenth.
Hiroshi Aoyama came home eleventh with Michael Laverty finishing a career-best twelfth. Mike Di Meglio finished thirteenth and scored points for the second consecutive race with Broc Parkes finishing fourteenth. For the second consecutive race, only fourteen riders made it to the finish.
Alex de Angelis was in position to score a point but retired on the final lap. Dani Pedrosa had worked his way up to eleventh before falling again and this time falling out of the race. Nicky Hayden fell while running in the top ten. Cal Crutchlow had a mechanical issue end his race while he was solidly in the points and Aleix Espargaró and Álvaro Bautista had an accident end their days after only one lap.
Márquez's victory tied Mick Doohan for the record of most victories in a single season. The Australian won twelve of fifteen rounds in 1997 with his first coming in Malaysia and his twelfth coming in Catalunya as the final of a ten-race winning streak. Doohan finished second in two of the other three races while retiring in the final race of the season, his home race in Australia. Márquez will now head home to Valencia, Spain with a chance to take the record all for himself.
Márquez has a 62-point advantage Rossi with the Italian having only a 12-point gap between him and Lorenzo for second in the championship. After back-to-back retirements, Pedrosa will be guaranteed to finish fourth in the 2014 championship. Andrea Dovizioso is also assured he will finished fifth in the 2014 championship.
Pol Espargaró has a 7-point lead over Bradley Smith for sixth in the championship and a 9-point gap over his brother Aleix. Bradl is seven back of Aleix while Andrea Iannone stayed in the top ten of the championship despite missing Sepang due to a left arm contusion. Iannone is thirteen points clear of Bautista for tenth in the championship.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
