Sepang MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa escapes to claim victory

The early laps were some of the best of the season as the factory Yamahas and Hondas plus Gresini's Alvaro Bautista formed a five-bike pack jostling for the lead.

It was Lorenzo who led that group, having out-muscled fellow fast-starter Pedrosa through the opening corners.

Pedrosa's Honda repeatedly got a run on Lorenzo's Yamaha on the following laps, but the champion always managed to brake later into the corners.

Finally Pedrosa slipped past down the back straight, with the two bikes brushing at the final corner as he completed the move.

That gave Marquez a run at Lorenzo and began an astonishingly hard-fought battle between them, in which Lorenzo did his utmost to fend off Marquez with some bold repasses.

It took several laps and several near-misses before Marquez finally made it ahead for good.

Pedrosa was only a second in front at that point, but had speed in hand and was able to pull away and win by nearly three seconds.

Marquez left Lorenzo behind as he extended his championship lead with second, while Valentino Rossi completed the top four.

Bautista dropped away from the lead group and became embroiled in a spectacular dice with Cal Crutchlow, only beating the Tech 3 Yamaha on the final lap.

Bradley Smith and Andrea Dovizioso were next up, with CRT leader Aleix Espargaro keeping Pramac Ducati's Yonny Hernandez at arm's length for ninth.

Nicky Hayden retired from seventh with smoke pouring from his Ducati early on.

Results - 20 laps:

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike               Time/Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 40m45.191s
 2.  Marc Marquez      Honda                    +2.757s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                   +6.669s
 4.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                  +10.351s
 5.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda           +22.149s
 6.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha           +22.301s
 7.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha           +30.864s
 8.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                  +45.111s
 9.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia           +59.264s
10.  Yonny Hernandez   Pramac Ducati         +1m01.417s
11.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  +1m03.665s
12.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia         +1m14.256s
13.  Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  +1m21.603s
14.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  +1m27.976s
15.  Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  +1m29.442s
16.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW        +1m29.551s
17.  Luca Scassa       Cardion Aprilia       +1m47.930s
18.  Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda     +1m52.927s

Retirements:

     Michael Laverty   PBM Aprilia              12 laps
     Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW           11 laps
     Nicky Hayden      Ducati                    8 laps
     Damian Cudlin     PBM-Aprilia               7 laps
     Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati             6 laps
     Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda                 0 laps