The Malaysian GP always faces a risk of rain, and the MotoGP riders bore the brunt of just such a scenario this Sunday. Their race was delayed until 4:20pm, scheduled for 20 laps of the Speang circuit. A wet contest saw Lorenzo and Pedrosa pull away early, before the latter made a pass at the midway point. That was the final overtake for the lead in the race, as on lap thirteen Race Direction ordered the red flag to be shown due to the dangerous conditions. Thirteen riders had avoided crashing but the surface presented too much of a risk to allow the Malaysian GP to continue.
There were mixed feelings for the POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar riders in Sepang. Aleix Espargaró and Randy De Puniet had continued to lead the CRT riders during the weekend, but during the race the heavy rain made things much tougher for the duo. Aleix Espargaró kept his bike upright and set a strong pace, riding round in eighth before Race Direction made the decision to stop the contest. Awarded the position, he added a further eight points to his tally for the season and claimed his best result of the campaign so far.
Teammate Randy De Puniet had his bike slip from under him in a lowside on the final corner of the Sepang circuit, on lap ten shortly before the race was red flagged.
In honour of Ginés Guirado, a friend of the Aspar Team and the entire paddock who passed away yesterday: “The Aspar family will always hold you in our hearts. Thank you for all our time together. RIP”
8th Aleix Espargaró:
“I am very happy, because today we took a big CRT victory in a tough race. I started well and battled with some of the satellite riders at the start, then Randy passed me at a good pace and I struggled to keep with him. Soon that intensity dropped, so I decided to pass him again. Later I caught up with Barbera until it started to rain more heavily and it was almost impossible to stay on the bike -on every corner both wheels were sliding around. Seeing Randy had crashed, I decided to focus on staying upright and taking as many points as possible. That was a valuable result and we must continue like this in Australia, in order to reach Valencia calm and able to enjoy the weekend. I think the decision to stop the race was the right one, because the way the track was made it too dangerous for the riders.”
Randy De Puniet (DNF):
"Today I made a pretty good start; on the first few laps I felt fine. But when the rain intensified I started to lose confidence. Aleix overtook me, I tried to follow him but he was going very fast, so I tried just to keep my position at all costs. I knew it would be difficult to re-pass him, so the most logical choice, seeing the state of the track, was to try and pick up as many points as possible. When it started to rain more I couldn’t see anything at all. On lap ten, the final corner, I ran through too much water and lost the front. It’s a pity, but we can’t wallow in this and at least we are just ten points behind Aleix. We have to focus on catching him however we can; it will be difficult, but we won’t throw in the towel.”
Power Electronics Aspar Press Release
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