It was a day of unintended elevens for Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team), as the 2016 MotoGP™ World Champion finished the Malaysian GP in P11, after a crash at Turn 11. With the rain coming down hard ahead of the original start time, lights out was delayed before the grid then took on a still very much soaked Sepang International Circuit. Marquez, who suffered with illness throughout the days before the race and even sat out FP2, was the quickest starter as he moved up from the second row into second around Turn 1 – and remained in the front group in touch with the lead. Deciding to wait until the later stages to attack, the Repsol Honda rider found himself searching for laptime in some braking zones as the competitors around him were winning on acceleration – and finally pushed a little hard into Turn 11; remounting to fight back up to P11 by the flag.
Marc Marquez (P11): “To make a mistake today was quite easy. I was struggling a little, little bit because we were losing too much in sector four in the two acceleration points – for some reason we were losing a lot to Ducati but also to Yamaha. So I was trying to catch them in the braking points around the rest of the circuit but I was able to be there and stay there. I was waiting for the end of the race but then I lost it at Turn 11 – but it’s better to make the mistakes now! Australia was one kind of mistake, but here was different. Here I was more calm and in the rain it’s easy to make a mistake – so in Valencia now we’ll try and finish the season on a high.”