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Pedrosa takes Malaysia race
Spain’s Dani Pedrosa won the Malaysian Grand Prix for the second year in a row yesterday but his compatriot Marc Marquez finished second to move to the brink of clinching the MotoGP title in his rookie season.
Pedrosa, nursing a badly injured hip from a crash he blamed on a collision with Marquez that ended his race in Aragon two weeks ago, made a point to his Honda teammate with a dominant ride at Sepang to claim his third victory of the season.
Marquez, though, prevailed in a fierce battle with his closest title rival, world champion Jorge Lorenzo, and passed the Yamaha rider with 11 laps remaining to claim the 20 points awarded for second place.
Victory for Marquez next week at Phillip Island in Australia combined with anything worse than second place for Lorenzo, who finished third ahead of Valentino Rossi, would hand the 20-year-old the world title with two races to spare.
Marquez said claiming the points for the championship race at the sweeping Sepang International Circuit had been more important than pushing for a seventh victory of the season.
“We had a great battle with Jorge and Dani opened up this gap,” he said. “And when I overtook Jorge, I tried to close this gap but it was too much risk.
“So I said, ‘Okay, I will finish second, I will lead with 43 points and that is enough after the Malaysian Grand Prix’.”
With three rounds to go and a maximum of 75 points up for grabs, Marquez leads the riders’ standings on 298 points with Lorenzo second on 255 and Pedrosa third with 244.
(Reuters)
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