Pedrosa victorious in Sepang

Dani Pedrosa clinched his third win of the MotoGP season at the Malaysian Grand Prix while Marc Marquez finished second to extend his championship lead to 43 points.

Repsol Honda rider Pedrosa beat team-mate and compatriot Marquez by 2.757 seconds, and reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo made it an all-Spanish podium in Sepang by placing third for Yamaha Factory Racing.

Pedrosa has now shortened the standings gap to 11 points on second-placed Lorenzo with three races remaining.

Lorenzo was 6.669secs off Pedrosa's winning time of 40 minutes 45.191secs, with Italy's Valentino Rossi (Yamaha Factory Racing) pipping Alvaro Bautista (Honda Gresini) to fourth spot.

British duo Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith were sixth and seventh for Monster Yamaha Tech 3.

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team), Aleix Espargaro (Power Electronics Aspar) and Yonny Hernandez (Ignite Pramac Racing) completed the top 10.

Lorenzo made the strongest start on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur but he was overtaken by Pedrosa at the end of the first lap.

The Catalan then streaked clear to leave Lorenzo battling Marquez for the runner-up spot and the younger rider did not look back after making a move stick on Turn 14 with 11 laps to go.

A philosophical Lorenzo told motogp.com: "I enjoyed the battle (with Marquez) because it was good fun and went on for a while.

"I'm happy with the podium because a podium is a podium, but I'm slightly disappointed too because I wanted to beat Dani and if possible win the race.

"Today in the heat we were not competitive enough.

"At the beginning like always we were not so bad but once the rear tyre dropped we weren't strong enough on braking and the other guys recovered so much ground.

"In the middle of the race we also started to lose out on acceleration too. Third place was the best result possible and we did everything we could."

Earlier, Marc VDS rider Scott Redding saw his championship lead reduced to nine points in Moto2 after a disastrous afternoon in the heat and humidity.

The 20-year-old made a good start from fourth on the grid and held his position in the first lap.

But as the race was reduced from 19 to 12 laps - after a multi bike accident - Redding was thwarted by a crash in turn two and immediately lost touch with the leaders, eventually finishing seventh.

While his championship rival Pol Espargaro fought his way into second place behind winner and team-mate Tito Rabat.