Already crowned world champion Maximo Quiles produced a dominant performance to claim victory in the Moto3 race at Sepang.
Quiles judged the race to perfection and built a strong gap after taking the lead on Lap 7, going unchallenged and breaking away from the group behind.
Quiles made the best start from pole position and led into Turn 1 from David Almansa, who pulled two aggressive moves to pass home favourite Hakim Danish and Brian Uriarte.
Almansa used his momentum off the start to make a decisive move into Turn 4 to pass Quiles, not allowing the already-crowned world champion to escape from the group.
The scrappy fight at the front allowed Alvaro Carpe to come through and move into second and in front of Quiles, with the positions changing at the end of the first lap.
Veda Pratama lost the front going into Turn 2 on Lap 2 which allowed the group to get a gap of around half a second, but the quartet fighting amongst themselves immediately ate into their lead.
After the fight that allowed Pratama to rejoin the fight for the lead, Quiles decided to take control and get into the lead of the race, and built an almost-unassailable gap of seven tenths immediately.
Quiles’ lead eventually built to over three seconds, with his margin as he cruised to the chequered flag officially at 3.734s.
Further behind, the battle was still on for the other two positions on the podium with Danish, Almansa, Carpe and Pratama in contention and switching constantly on the run to the finish line.
Pratama had some breathing room as he came home in second, while Carpe prevailed round the final corner to complete the top three.
Danish ran wide at the final corner and missed out on a dream home podium in fourth, while Almansa was forced wide by the Malaysian on the last lap and took fifth.
Joel Esteban was sixth and the leader of the next group, beating Adrian Fernandez and David Munoz in a close run to the line, while Brian Uriarte was just behind in ninth.
Eddie O’Shea completed the top 10 in a lonely race, with Ryusei Yamanaka 11th and Guido Pini suffering transponder issues but taking 12th over the line.
Zen Mitani was 13th, while a near-photo finish for the final points positions saw Adrian Cruces 14th and Valentin Perrone 15th despite a long lap penalty.
Discussion about this post