Aleix Espargaro takes eight points away from rain-struck Sepang race

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.

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.”

Source: Aspar Media