The race was, however, overshadowed by the three-lap duel for third place between Honda rider Marc Márquez and his rival Rossi as the two traded position several times per lap.

Zarco however conserved the life of his tyres in the closing stages of the race and passed Lüthi at turn two on the final lap to win for the eighth time in the season.

[4] It was the twenty-fifth consecutive Grand Prix to be held in Malaysia and the sixteenth straight race at the fifteen-turn 5.543 km (3.444 mi) Sepang International Circuit.

[7] It was later confirmed that the event would proceed without any restrictions due to the championship situation,[8] and monitoring equipment was installed at the circuit to measure the local air quality.

[12][13] Meanwhile, Pedrosa aimed to return to the podium after stating his happiness over his fifth-place finish at the Australian Grand Prix and wanted to give himself the best opportunity of securing a strong result and noted the physical and mental demands placed on the rider due to Malaysia's warm climate.

The rest of the top ten was completed by Rossi, Scott Redding, Cal Crutchlow, Iannone, Héctor Barberá, Aleix Espargaró and Andrea Dovizioso.

This enabled Pedrosa to clinch his first pole position of the season, his first since the 2014 Catalan Grand Prix, and broke Márquez's lap record of the Sepang International Circuit from the previous year with a time of one minute and 59.053 seconds.

Nicky Hayden slipstreamed up behind another bike but this did not significantly aid him enough to improve his best effort and took 19th while 20th-placed Loris Baz struggled with getting the correct amount of grip from his tyres and this meant he could not push any harder than he could.

[35] Soon after, Iannone retired in the pit lane with a damaged radiator which was caused by another rider kicking up a stone with one of his tyres at the start of the race and it punctured a hole in the bike component.

[35] Due to his crash in the warm-up session, Pol Espargaró was riding in severe pain with a fractured vertebrae and felt dizzy during certain points in the race which left him vulnerable to being overtaken by other riders.

Approaching turn four on lap three, Márquez made a mistake under braking and he skimmed along the edge of the rumble strips but managed to avoid running onto grass.

[31] Rossi grew increasingly frustrated with the battle for third and turned backwards to gesticulate to Márquez which was interpreted as a signal that the pair should stop duelling and slipstream one another to get back to Pedrosa and Lorenzo who were pulling away.

[31] On the eleventh lap,[33] Crutchlow (despite a brake lever problem) was battling Dovizioso for fourth position at turns five and six when the two made contact during the change of direction.

[29] On the post-race podium, Lorenzo was booed by the crowd as he collected his second-place trophy and his teammate Rossi declined to speak to the media in the later press conference.

[40] Lorenzo then proceeded to leave the podium and later explained to the press that this was not because of the booing but due to him suffering from exhaustion from the high ambient temperatures and humidity that is often dealt with in Malaysia.

[41] Two weeks later at the season-ending Valencian Community Grand Prix, Lorenzo apologised for appearing to make a thumbs down gesture at teammate Rossi on the podium, "I regret that.

[32] The stewards deemed Rossi to have "deliberately ran wide on Turn 14 in order to force another rider off line, resulting in contact causing the other rider to crash" and issued him three penalty points for transgressing Article 1.21.2 of the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix Regulations and was ordered to start at the back of the grid for the Valencian Community Grand Prix because he already had another penalty point from earlier in the season.

Despite failing to finish the race, Márquez maintained third position with 222 points and his teammate Pedrosa moved past the non-finishing Iannone for fourth because of his victory.

"[32] However, Franco Uncini, MotoGP's safety director, played down suggestions that Rossi's status had been influential in deciding the penalty and stated the severity of the incident called for a retrospective review rather than an imminent decision.

"[55] Michael Laverty criticised Márquez on Twitter, "Marc [Marquez] broke the unwritten rule, always respect those fighting for a championship when you're not"[53] with Colin Edwards expressing a similar statement.

[53] The FIM president Vito Ippolito wrote an open letter to the MotoGP community, saying the events had "a damaging effect on the staging of our competitions and poisoned the atmosphere around the sport", and, "We are moving away from the tradition of pride in sportsmanship that is part of the heritage of motorcycling.

"[56] Thirteen-time champion Ángel Nieto wrote to Rossi and Márquez and called for both riders to resume "the harmony and the respect that has characterised throughout your successful career, in which you were an idol for one another.

"[57] Carmelo Ezpeleta, the CEO of Dorna Sports, privately met with Lorenzo, Rossi and Márquez and later told the press at Valencia that Ippolito believed mistakes had been made and cooperation with the MotoGP community was needed to correct them, "We've done a lot of self-analysis and few people know the situation better than us.

[60] Members of the media also came under scrutiny by creating allegations that Lorenzo stormed into the Race Direction hearing and pleaded that Rossi be disqualified and "launched into a tirade".

[62] The Spanish press were critical of Rossi's actions and fans on social media compared it to those committed by Italian defender Mauro Tassotti who elbowed Luis Enrique during the quarter-finals of the 1994 FIFA World Cup and the kick to the chest committed by defensive midfielder Nigel de Jong on central midfielder Xabi Alonso in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final.

"The aftermath of the incident left a lingering effect on the sport, particularly Lorenzo and Márquez who were given extra security during the Italian and San Marino rounds of the 2016 season after an increasing amount of serious threats towards them by Rossi's fan base.

[63] Prior to the 2020 season, then team-principal Livio Suppo reflected on the incident and the impact it had on both Márquez and sport itself, "There was a big confusion among some of Valentino's friends, they came into the garage shouting and were really aggressive with Marc [...], it was an unforgettable weekend.

[73] Thomas Lüthi was in the top three in all trio of practice sessions and carried his strong form into qualifying where he took his eighth career pole position with a time of two minutes and 6.383 seconds and no one could better his effort because of rain.

[73] Zarco then fended off a comeback from Lüthi and held the lead for the rest of the race to secure the tenth victory of his career by half a second and he equalled Rabat and Márquez's joint record of the number of Moto2 podiums scored in one season with his fourteenth of 2015.

[74] Thirteenth-placed and Sam Lowes struggled with grip in the race's closing stages which lost him five seconds per lap,[74][75] and Ricard Cardús and Franco Morbidelli were the final two points scorers.