The 2025 Malaysian GP saw Alex Marquez take not only a dominant victory but also clinch second place in the rider’s standings behind brother Marc. KTM’s Pedro Acosta and Honda’s Joan Mir completed the podium as Francesco Bagnaia suffered a rear tyre puncture in the closing stages while running P3 and was forced to retire.
- Alex wins and clinches 2nd place in the championship
- Bagnaia DNFs due to rear tyre puncture
- Bezzecchi now third in the standings, 5 points ahead of Bagnaia
The podium fight
Bagnaia’s DNF handed Mir third place
While polesitter Francesco Bagnaia won the Sprint, he wasn’t able to replicate that success on Sunday. He got the holeshot and led for a few corners before being overtaken by Alex. Marquez was running the soft front tyre and Bagnaia the medium, which gave the former an early advantage to make the move. Once Alex came to the front of the race, he started eking out the advantage to those behind him and established a comfortable lead.
Behind him, Acosta and Bagnaia were engaged in a fierce battle for second place with the former eventually pipping the latter to the post. Once Acosta got clear of the Ducati man, he too established a comfortable buffer to Bagnaia who was himself quite a bit ahead of Joan Mir, who was then in fourth place.
A few laps before the race was to end, Bagnaia perplexingly slowed down to look at the rear of his machine while going off the racing line and then slowly trudged back to the pits. This was later revealed to be due to an unfortunate puncture in the rear tyre which took the two-time World Champion out of contention. This meant that Joan Mir was promoted to third and clinched the final podium place.
2025 MotoGP standings
Marc and Alex have clinched first and second in the rider’s championship, respectively but the battle for third place still rages on. Bezzecchi’s recent strong form - barring Sepang - has helped him dethrone Bagnaia from third place overall with a slender 5 point advantage. The next race will be held on November 7-9, at the Portimao circuit in Portugal.
Unnatee Gidithuri
Suraj Viswanathan
