Masia is probably grateful he and the team used those tactics last week, he was nowhere this race
Masia has had a few off races this season but this was the worst one. Shame, cause it now appears as though those disgraceful antics last week were the deciding factor in the championship.
Going into the last 2 weeks I thought either of the top 2 riders would've been a deserving champion. Sasaki was clearly the most consistently quick rider, in the fight for victory pretty much every single weekend, but obviously let a lot of results slip away. I actually didn't hold the fact he hadn't won a race too much against him - it's often a bit of a crapshoot on the last lap in Moto3 and a lot of those second places could've easily turned into 4th or 5th places if he had been overly aggressive on the last lap. For me, the bigger problem with Sasaki was the several horrendous blunders he made that resulted in no points when he could/should have won, especially early on in the season. Masia had had a few more weekends off the pace but was still fairly consistently up there and did a better job of taking his chances throughout the season.
After these last 2 weekends, though, I now think that Sasaki was the better rider over the year and the more deserving winner. Turns out now that even just a single long lap penalty for Masia in Qatar (which is less of a penalty than he actually deserved) would've resulted in Sasaki winning the title.