Hiroshi Aoyama took a huge step towards the last-ever 250cc world championship with a brilliant victory in Malaysia.

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The Japanese rider pulled away in the final laps of a thrilling race at Sepang to take the chequered flag ahead of Hector Barbera and Marco Simoncelli, who now trails Aoyama by 21 points ahead of the final race in Valencia - the Italian must win there and hope Aoyama fails to score if he is to retain his title.

Barbera and Simoncelli were involved in a dead heat for second place, crossing the line with an identical time to the nearest thousandth of a second.

Not even a photo-finish could separate them, but Barbera took second place on a tie-breaker as he posted the better fastest lap.

French privateer Jules Cluzel did his burgeoning reputation no harm, leading for the first four laps and keeping pace with the leaders until he crashed out late in the race.

Aoyama and Simoncelli swapped positions repeatedly in a thrilling dice, before the Japanese rider took control of the race with seven laps to go.

He stretched away from the defending champion and eventually won by six seconds, to the evident delight of a noisy Japanese contingent in the crowd.

The humidity may have affected Simoncelli, who has faced questions about his fitness in the past and poured a bottle of water into his helmet on the warm-down lap.

After a near fall at turn one, Swiss Thomas Luthi charged all the way up to fourth position for Caffe-Latte Aprilia.

Malaysian GP: HIGHLIGHTS at 3.45pm on Sunday on British Eurosport 2 (Sky 411 / Virgin Media 525); Also available on your PC via the Eurosport Player - click on the link under the picture to subscribe