RELENTLESS ALEX MARQUEZ WINS SPRINT RACE AT SEPANG
Alex Marquez has scored an excellent sprint race win at Sepang, which confirms all the good things shown during the opening day at the Malaysian circuit. Following a fully positive qualifying two (he lined up in fourth place on the grid), the Spanish rider #73 did an outstanding job also in the cloudy and extremely hot afternoon conditions.
A great start, an excellent strategy and a spectacular race pace were the three ingredients that enabled Marquez not only to match Martin and Bagnaia’s pace, but also have the better of them and pull away in the second half of the encounter. He crossed the line with more than a second margin over his closest opponents, with the #73 now looking forward to repeating the same type of performance on a track that is clearly among his favorites.
Fabio Di Giannantonio had a much quieter race. His qualifying performance was hampered by a crash at turn 15, while in the race he was not clearly the ‘type of Diggia’ seen in previous events. He will try to make amends tomorrow on the longer distance.
1st – ALEX MARQUEZ #73
“I made a mistake during an overtaking manoeuvre on Pecco, but aside from that it was a perfect race. We used the best strategy: we waited a little bit, also to keep the right pressure on the front tyre. Then, when I saw that Peccowas slightly slower than me, I attacked and thought only about winning. I didn’t look at the board until the last lap, and then when I saw +1.2secs of margin I stayed focused to finish the race the best way possible.”
13th – FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO #49
“It hasn’t been an easy weekend so far. I didn’t have a great feeling and I ended up crashing while trying to push at the limit in Q2. It’s also true that we did a great lap in Q1, but we need to work in order to sort a few things out and be back on the right level of performance tomorrow.”
