Francesco Bagnaia took his second win of the season in Malaysia after practically all the other big names had crashes, with only 13 riders staying on their bikes. There was also a late red flag after Maria Herrera crashed with Livio Loi on lap 15.
Off the line it was Brad Binder who maintained his lead going into turn one. Bagnaia seemed to move before everyone else but it wasn’t deemed a jump start. At turn two the first crash occurred with Andrea Migno, Juan Francisco Guevara and replacement rider Ayumu Sasaki colliding with each other.
Later in the lap at Turn 6, Jorge Martin had a highside by himself and as Phillip Oettl tried to avoid Martin he made contact with Aaron Canet and Nicolo Bulega. All four riders were out of the race and taken to the medical centre.
Joan Mir made a great start and managed to take the lead from Brad Binder going onto lap two. Going into Turn 7 the race would change, however. There was oil on track and Joan Mir, Brad Binder, Lorenzo Dalla Porta and Fabio Giannantonio all went down. The top four had been in a clear group and therefore with three of them out Francesco Bagnaia was now completely by himself in front. He would go on to dominate from here.
The battle for second continued with Jakub Kornfeil, a big mover at the start, managing to get into the podium scrap. His job was made a lot easier when Jorge Navarro crashed at Turn 15 and then Nicolo Antonelli at Turn 9 the next lap.
Bo Bendsneyder was also wanting a second place and entered into a battle with Kornfeil, managing to pass him on the start of Lap 14 but Kornfeil would regain the spot at Turn 1 on lap 15. This battle would go onto not mean anything though as Maria Herrera, battling in the top 10, crashed with Livio Loi and the red flag was brought out as she received assistance. Race direction decided that with the rain coming in that it was time to halt the race.
The results were taken from Lap 13 so Kornfeil took second and Bendsneyder third. Fabio Quartararo was fourth and ended quite close behind the podium contenders, Andrea Locatelli was fifth, Marco Ramirez sixth, Gabriel Rodrigo seventh, Khairul Idham Pawi eighth at his home round, Livio Loi ninth and Darryn Binder 10th.
