The 2025 Malaysian GP delivered another standout win for Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP), who produced a stunning ride. The #73 grabbed victory, charging 2.676s clear of Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing), with the Spanish star continuing his forward momentum in the second half of the season. Joan Mir earned a brilliant third-place finish to round off his flyaway stint in style. With plenty of surprises and big shifts throughout the field, check out the latest talking points from Sepang.

"It was nearly a perfect race"

Alex Marquez enjoyed a weekend that he would never forget, finishing in second position in Saturday’s Sprint before delivering a dominant display on Sunday – grabbing victory. The #73 scored 34 points across the weekend, cementing his place in the history books as runner-up this season, making it a Marquez one-two in the standings. Despite Sunday’s win, the Spaniard admitted that it was a more difficult weekend than he initially thought.

Alex Marquez: "It’s true that I made a mistake this weekend, by expecting things to be too easy. Then, when you start the weekend with a crash in FP1, and again a crash in Practice, where we finished in ninth to make it in Q2, which was a little bit on the limit, it was quite complicated. The conditions and especially the feeling of the bike changed quite a lot compared to February here. The tarmac and conditions on the track were really different. So, step by step during the weekend, we turned things around.

"We improved the feeling a little bit in Warm Up, and later on, I was clever with my plan to attack Pedro in the first lap and then Pecco in the second lap. Then I just tried to manage the tyre until the end. So, it was nearly a perfect race, and I’m really happy for that."

"Tyre management is quite tough"

Pedro Acosta served up another impressive performance this weekend, finishing on the Sprint podium in third before snatching an impressive second on Sunday. It was another masterclass from the Spanish star, who continues the search for his first premier class victory. Reflecting on the weekend, Acosta admitted that he arrived in Malaysia expecting a difficult race due to tyre consumption.

Acosta: "We know that tyre management is quite tough for us. But the plan was more or less the same as yesterday, to make a good start and try to be as close to the front as possible to follow these guys. It’s true that Alex had a little bit more pace than me and Pecco in the beginning. But it’s also true that later I was able to more or less match his lap times. I was dreaming of catching him, but he was quite far ahead already, so I said, 'Okay, now is the time to be safe.'"

"One of the hardest races of my life"

Joan Mir earned another Sunday podium in Malaysia, matching his best result of the season with P3. Mir’s pace was impressive throughout, showing signs of speed in the Sprint before a crash put him out of contention on Saturday. But on Sunday, the 2020 World Champion banished those demons after what he described as one of the hardest races of his life.

Mir: "It was probably one of the hardest races in my life in terms of managing. We’ve been lucky with the Pecco’s problem, but this type of luck you have when you are fighting for it. I think that everything was tricky because when you follow somebody, the front temperature of the tyre goes up. Then you struggle to stop, you turn more with the rear, the tyre consumption goes up, and then you arrive in the last part of the race with no tyres."

"I'm leaving here with a clearer idea"

Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) suffered another mixed weekend, beginning his Malaysian GP strong following a confidence-boosting pole position in qualifying. This pace was backed up in the Tissot Sprint, with the Italian securing the Sprint victory by 2.259s from Alex Marquez. However, Bagnaia was unable to back up this pace on Sunday, with a rear tyre puncture placing him out of contention.

Bagnaia: "It's something that can happen in a race weekend. Honestly, not now, not this weekend, but I started to lose performance from one lap to another. We saw on the data that I had a puncture on lap 12, and then I did 5 more laps, and without knowing why, I started to spin more, not controlling braking anymore, I was going wide many times, and it was strange.

"Even if the points are less than Motegi, I'm leaving here with a clearer idea right now. Let's wait until Portimao, but here we worked well after a not so good Friday. In Motegi, I was super confident that everything was fine, because finally I was feeling fantastic on my bike. And it was strange because nobody knows why. So we are giving some notice to the team, and they are working on it to give it to us for next year."

"I've been struggling a lot"

It was a tough weekend for Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia Racing), with the Italian ending the weekend with just nine points scored. Bezzecchi qualified P14 on Saturday, carving his way to P6 in the Sprint before ending the weekend with a P11 finish on Sunday. Although it wasn’t the result that he or Aprilia had hoped for, Bezzecchi admitted that the feeling was better than the February test.

Bezzecchi: "Sunday’s race didn't help to improve our weekend because today I've been struggling a lot. I think that we didn't take the best tyre option. It wasn't maybe the best option to pick the medium front, but we thought that the temperature could help us.

"We knew that coming here was going to be a bit more difficult compared to Phillip Island. Also, let’s say that before Phillip Island, we didn't know what we could expect from Phillip Island. But coming here, having done the test in February, we knew that the bike was working differently, let's say, and we proved that I felt much better than the test"