Bagnaia wins Malaysia MotoGP to keep title race alive

SEPANG - Francesco Bagnaia won a thrilling Malaysia MotoGP on Sunday after a ding-dong battle with championship leader Jorge Martin to take the pair's title battle to the final weekend of the season.

Spaniard Martin's lead was cut to 24 points after he finished second behind the Italian defending champion Bagnaia, with 37 up for grabs in the final round in a fortnight's time.

Enea Bastianini was a distant third to complete the podium behind the dominant front two.

"Honestly, Jorge was very aggressive," said Ducati rider Bagnaia.

"But our pace was too good, and like always in the race, on Sunday, I can attack."

Pramac Ducati's Martin had extended his championship lead to 29 points after he won Saturday's sprint and Bagnaia crashed his Ducati.

Bagnaia admitted his sprint race form had not been good enough after taking his 10th grand prix win of 2024.

"We just need to understand why on Saturday I'm struggling more to do the same," said the 2022 and 2023 world champion.

"But it's the 10th victory of the season. We are doing an incredible job."

Martin is chasing his first world title and now knows victory in the final sprint will be enough to secure the crown.

"Thanks to Pecco (Bagnaia), because he's making this challenge more and more and more difficult," said Martin.

"You know, I wanted to win. I wanted to be in the lead. But, for sure, Pecco had another strategy. Completely understood his strategy. He was quite aggressive.

"I was also, and we were making a good show for the first few laps. But it was impossible to fight at the end. So we go to the final race."

The season finale had been due to take place in Valencia but was cancelled Friday after deadly flooding in that part of Spain.

WHEEL-TO-WHEEL

Organisers were rushing to find a new venue, with Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya emerging on Sunday as the preferred replacement by the teams.

A minute's silence was held in Sepang before Saturday's sprint to remember the more than 200 dead from the floods.

On Sunday, the grand prix was restarted after a first-lap red flag.

It heralded a phenomenal wheel-to-wheel scrap in the opening stages with Bagnaia and Martin continually swapping the lead.

Bagnaia from pole led into the first bend but Martin was all over the Italian's back wheel for the first four laps as the pair tussled furiously, touching bikes on more than one occasion.

At the original race start it had also been Bagnaia who emerged in front after the first turn, only for the race to be stopped after a horror crash involving Jack Miller, Brad Binder and Fabio Quartararo.

All three riders miraculously escaped any serious injury and the race restarted from the same grid positions, but reduced by one lap.