Biaggi has strength to resist challenge

Max Biaggi took his second MotoGP victory of the season in the Malaysian Grand Prix here yesterday.

The Italian started from second on the grid and quickly stormed into the lead before holding off a determined attack from world champion Valentino Rossi in the closing stages to take a highly-prized win for his Marlboro-Yamaha team.

Honda had dominated the qualifying sessions, but in the race Biaggi fought a lone battle for Yamaha, seeing off the challenge of Tohru Ukawa, Daijiro Kato and Alex Barros.

Rossi recovered from a lowly starting position of eighth to take second from Repsol Honda team-mate Ukawa with just a few laps to go but he could do nothing about Biaggi's advantage and had to be content with second. Honda's Barros finished third.

Afterwards Biaggi confessed the 21 laps around Sepang had taken their toll. "When you win it's the best day of your life and I'm very, very happy today because this is a very difficult race, the most difficult of the year," he said. "I managed to stay second after the start, and when I saw Rossi and Ukawa closing on me and Barros, I went ahead and tried to run a good pace.

"The heat was incredible. But I like this kind of race – push hard and control. They all put in so much effort, even though I won't be with them next year, but I think I've also proved that I don't give up."

Rossi blamed an incident with Barros for costing him vital time as he challenged Biaggi for the lead. The Italian said: "My first rival was Ukawa, my team-mate, and it was not such an easy race for me because my set-up was not so good. I lost the front twice and I didn't have the right feeling from the front from then on. I took Ukawa and Kato but with two seconds to Barros and Biaggi it was very difficult to catch them.

"When I did, Alex made a mistake and I tried to overtake him but we both arrived too fast. I had to release the brake, touched Alex and we ran wide."