Marc Marquez plans maximum attack at Malaysian GP after dominant Friday

Marc Marquez has vowed to continue attacking after hitting the ground running at Sepang on Friday - despite his injured title rival Jorge Martin appearing to be on the back foot.

Factory Ducati rider Marquez has a relatively modest record at the track outside Kuala Lumpur, but said he felt at one with his GP26 from the moment he ventured out onto the circuit on Friday morning.

"Some years [at Sepang], I feel good from the beginning. Some years, I'm struggling from the beginning - and then all the weekend is more difficult," he said. "But today, from the out-lap, the feeling was good. Then with the medium rear tyre, it was a good feeling."

After topping the morning session, Marquez easily matched the feat in the afternoon, when only a minor crash early in the session blotted his copybook.

"And in the afternoon, apart from the small crash at Turn 15, that is where I'm taking more risk, the rest was perfect."

MotoGPMotoGP Malaysian GP: Marc Marquez tops practice as Martin ends Friday early

With three Ducatis in the top five, and his brother Alex second-fastest behind him, Marquez sees an opportunity to press home his advantage and effectively put the championship to bed. Aprilia's Martin is 10 points behind Marquez, with his participation in the remainder of the weekend uncertain, but Marquez is not contemplating a safe approach.

"I'm in a position in the championship that is in my hands, so I try to be as close as possible to 37 points. We see that also here Ducati is working well with Alex and Diggia [Fabio Di Giannantonio] too."

Marc Marquez's low-speed fall on Friday did not worry him

Photo by: Mohd Rasfan - AFP - Getty Images

Marquez added a word of caution, however, reminding his media audience that the weekend could yet take a different direction: "But we are on Friday. As we see at many racetracks this year, in Assen, in Mandalika, it looks like Friday was like, 'Okay, they are on another level,' and then the weekend changes. So we need to be calm."

Factory Aprilia man Marco Bezzecchi, who is 50 points behind Marquez in third position in the points, agreed on both the Ducati advantage and the potential for his own package to improve.

"It looks like Marc is a little bit ahead of everyone. His brother is also quite fast, a bit faster than me," Bezzecchi said.

"In this track they [Ducati] have always been much, much stronger. Now maybe we are slightly closer, but the difference has always been huge.

"In general, there are many Ducatis that are super quick. This has never been one of our strongest tracks, but the improvement we did is interesting, so hopefully we can make another step.

"It's true that I'm still missing something, but the pace is not so bad. In terms of time attack, maybe I could do something better in terms of riding in order to try to gain a couple of tenths."

Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / Getty Images

It's worth nothing that Bezzecchi was almost half a second slower than Marquez in both the morning and the afternoon at Sepang, and that Marc did not even use a second fresh set of tyres at the end of the final session. On the other hand, yellow flags did disrupt most of those chasing the factory Ducati in the dying minutes, possibly skewing the picture ahead of Saturday.

The fastest Aprilia in afternoon practice was actually the Trackhouse bike of Ai Ogura. The Japanese rider landed up 0.167s away from Marquez's best time of 1m57.000s.

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont

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