The eighteenth round of Motorcycle GP – Shell Malaysian Grand Prix-commences by formal press conference features 2018 MotoGP™ Champion Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda), Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati), Maverick Viñales (Movistar Yamaha), Andrea Iannone (Team Suzuki Ecstar), the returning Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati) and, home turf, Hafizh Syahrin (Monster Yamaha Tech 3).

Marquez, who has crowned few weeks ago, has been waiting to unleash and says his perspective for this weekend, “We’ll try to continue in the same way, in Phillip Island we struggled a bit then in the race we were in good shape so we’ll try and keep our performance here,” said the number 93 rider. “The preseason was good here, race pace, but now it’s completely different; different bikes and different setups, so we forget that and concentrate on the weekend. We start from FP1, try to work hard, then we’ll see if we can fight for the podium, the top five or the victory.”

Besides that, last two Malaysian GP winner, Dovizioso, looking for great race and curious about how his desmosedici machine works on dry and reckons, “This track is good for me but in the past, if we look at the result we didn’t take a lot of good results in the dry. The last two years we won in the wet but it will be interesting to see what our speed would be in the dry.”

The Australian GP winner, Maverick Viñales, says, “I think now we can do even better because we’re more relaxed and let’s see if that can help us to improve, and help Yamaha.

“I want to try to be competitive and be in front and try and finish the season well in the standings. It’s important to not lose this momentum now.”

UPDATES:

The number 99 has announced as fit for Sepang circuit and says, "It's been only eight days since I was operated on the ligament of my left wrist, I feel a little better. The surgery is still very recent and I will have to wait to get on the bike to understand how the wrist will respond. I am not 100% in addition I have not been able to train for several days. 

"And the Sepang circuit is very demanding, so this is definitely not the best scenario to get back on track."

If things didn’t go as planned, Michele Pirro, who is the development rider of DesmosediciGP-19, will be the replacement for the rest of the weekend.

Another rider who has shunted last week at Philip Island, Cal Crutchlow, has undergone additional surgeries on the ankles.  So, the Honda rider, Stefan Bradl, will get on wheels instead of him.

Furthermore, this is the 16^th Malaysian GP in the record, so far out of 15 rounds of Malaysia, the leading manufacturers Honda, Yamaha, Ducati has claimed 5 victories each.  Hence, it could be interesting to witness some more actions – added with Suzuki’s.

The First Practice session of MotoGP™ will start-off on Friday at 10:55 local time (GMT +8).