Marc Márquez will race again at this weekend’s Aragon Grand Prix in the last roll of the dice for his motorcycling career.
The six-time MotoGP champion hasn’t raced since May’s Italian Grand Prix, after which he made the momentous decision to undertake a fourth surgery on his right arm and start the recovery from his 2020 injury all over again.
Delicate but progressive rehabilitation has ensued in the months since. It wasn’t until three weeks ago that was able to return to gym training, and it was only a fortnight ago he started working on a motorcycle again.
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The final stage of his rehab began last week, on 6 September, when for the first time in 101 days he got back aboard a MotoGP bike to test his limits.
In the two-day post-Misano test he completed 100 laps and was half a second off the pace, which he described afterwards as being “very good” and making him “very happy”.
“I’m very happy because definitely on the second day the feeling was better, especially in the morning,” Marquez said, per Crash. “In the afternoon I was struggling a bit more with the arm position because the muscles were empty. Then I started to do some strange positions and some pain appeared, but then we stopped.
“It was in the plan; it’s exactly what the doctors and the physio told me would happen.
“But for me it was a very good test.”
https://twitter.com/marcmarquez93/status/1569657724602056704
And thus came the inevitable announcement for Honda that, without any further delay, Márquez was coming back.
“[Márquez] has followed the strict guidance of his medical team in order to facilitate a full recovery,” Honda said in a statement.
“After numerous check-ups, consultations and tests, all involved are satisfied with the recovery made and the #93 will now take the next step in his rehabilitation: returning to competition.”
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
The conservative, methodical approach to recuperation is a stark departure from the way he went about his recovery in 2020, which is exactly why we’re still talking about his injured arm more than two years later.
Márquez’s eagerness to get back on the bike damaged his original plate, and not only did that lead to infection down the line, but it also allowed the bone to fuse at an extreme 34-degree rotation at the site of the break.
That left him not only unable to ride to the best of his abilities but also in constant pain that took days to recover from — an unaffordable luxury with seasons now running to at least 20 grands prix
“My daily life is affected a lot,” he said when announcing his decision to go under the knife a fourth time to have his arm rebroken and set correctly.
“[Before the injury] I was training a lot at home with motocross, with road bikes, with any kind of bikes I was training a lot. Now normal life is go home, rest for two, three days because I can’t do anything, just some legs, some cycling. And then I start to train again, physio, painkillers.
“I say to my doctors and to my people, riding like this I will do one more year, two more years, not more, because I am not enjoying it and I’m suffering a lot and I cannot support this on the mental side.
“Having the operation is the correct decision for my future. I mean, the operation is not like ‘I will have the operation and I will win again’. No, the target of the operation was to try to enjoy it again and ride again and have normal life again, have a normal athlete life, training, forgetting the painkillers and all these things.”
WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT?
A two-day, 100-lap test is a dramatically different challenge to what will await Márquez this weekend in Aragon.
In Misano his longest on-track stint lasted just seven laps and came at the very end of the two days. The bulk of his track time came in four-lap bursts, with resting between runs as required to not overburden his undercooked muscles.
Completing 23 laps of the MotorLand circuit will push Márquez to his physical limit.
“The objective this weekend is not to go out and fight straight away, it is to build up everything and prepare well for the future,” Márquez said. “Build myself, the bike, everything.
“Misano was good but the race weekend will be different, there’s more intensity and less time to rest so it will be a different kind of challenge.
“I have been doing a lot of recovery work and continuing in the gym as well as riding a bike again before this weekend.”
Even Honda made clear it didn’t expect its star to be aiming for competitiveness this weekend.
“The objective for the weekend will be to continue improving Márquez’s bike fitness and assessing his performance during the intensity of a grand prix weekend and race,” it said in a statement.
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And that really will be the extent of it. The idea that Márquez could come back to competition after a 110-day hiatus and win again is fanciful, even accounting for his preternatural abilities.
Returning to MotoGP for the final six rounds is in effect a live training drill targeting 2023.
“To be more fit and more confident and faster, you need to be on the bike,” Marquez said, per MotoMatters. “But it’s true that to be on the bike you need to have a minimum level in your arm. You need to have a minimum force.
“I mean, race distance is race distance, and the intensity you ride in a race weekend is not the same as in a test.
“[In Misano] I was able to relax in the box. On a race weekend it’s completely different, but we will see.
“But the best way to grow the muscles and to get again the confidence is to be on the bike.”
HONDA NEEDS HIM BACK
The competitive picture in MotoGP has changed considerably in the last three years while Márquez has struggled for full fitness, and while part of that has been the emergence of the next generation, the biggest challenge he’ll need to confront is the degradation of the Honda bike.
The bike has slipped backwards since the Japanese marque’s attempts at some significant tweaks this season in response to the dearth of results in the last two and a half years without Márquez on the bike.
Honda attempted to reinvent the RC213V with more neutral characteristics to make it more rideable to someone without Márquez’s unique feel, but instead it served up a bike seemingly no-one could master, Marc included, albeit during his spell back with a twisted arm.
With its Pol Espargaró experiment having failed, the team needs Márquez back to steady the ship, even with Joan Mir joining its ranks next year.
Getting on top of the bike will therefore be Márquez’s biggest challenge after his physical condition, which is why it’s unsurprising he’s coming back so early.
Not only is he getting a jump on his own training, but he’s maximising his influence on next year’s bike to bring it back to competitiveness — and towards him, given 2020 champion Joan Mir will join the team next year, posing a possible challenge to the established power dynamic.
BUT MOTOGP NEEDS HIM BACK TOO
Any MotoGP fan should hope that we do get Márquez back, because the chapter of premier-class history defined by him lacks a proper conclusion.
Strange though it is to say, but the Spaniard has rapidly become one of the grid’s elder statesmen. Consider that he’s now 29 years old; meanwhile the top five riders at last weekend’s San Marino Grand Prix had an average age of just under 25.
And among them are several title-worthy riders. This year the two clear young-gun title contenders are Fabio Quartararo and Francesco Bagnaia, the former of course already with one championship to his name.
But there’s always been a sense of unfinished business in the fact that Quartararo didn’t have to defeat Márquez to claim that crown. That’s not to devalue his title in any way, only to say that the sport deserved a passing of the baton from one era to the next.
There’s also the fact that MotoGP has lacked a certain star power with so much change coming so quickly.
Márquez has entered just 23 races in the last three years, Jorge Lorenzo stopped at the end of 2019, Andrea Dovizioso sat out most of 2021 and retired two weeks ago and the uncompetitive tail of Valentino Rossi’s career ended last season.
The racing has nonetheless been good, but after the long reign of the so-called aliens, the stage has felt bare without Márquez as the raft of new riders attempt to establish themselves in a very competitive field.
“Without Márquez, the world championship is missing something,” Enea Bastianini, among the foremost of those new riders, admitted. “I think it’ll be more fun with him present.”
Aleix Espargaró, now the grid’s oldest rider since Dovizioso retired, agreed.
“I’m happy for him that he’s back,” he said. “For sure he’s struggled this year with another operation, so to see him riding again is good for everybody, good for the sport.”
AND IF IT DOESN’T WORK?
The question on MotoGP’s lips is whether a full-scale comeback is achievable for the Márquez, who has struggled for consistent seat time in recent years. This, after all, is his third comeback in three years, not including his brief sideline spells suffering from his recurring diplopia.
And Márquez knows his is his last chance. The surgery has presumably worked given he’s making his return after a relatively short recuperation phase, but whether it’s worked enough to return him to full competitiveness remains an open question.
He’s aware that getting his old self back isn’t a given, and he’s already contemplated the worst-case scenario that this last roll of the dice doesn’t work in his favour.
“My grandfather told me, ‘Nen, leave it now, you have enough to live on, what you’ve done is done, leave it’,” he told Spanish TV station DAZN.
“I promised my grandfather, ‘I promise it’s the last chance for the arm’.
“I told him that if this one doesn’t [work], there are no more places left to open.”
While it’s hard to imagine Márquez not committing his usual 100 per cent when on the bike, it’s important perspective for this next chapter in his career.
And the reality is that a lot needs to go right to see Marc Márquez return to his dominant best.
The surgery will have to completely fixed his arm, his physical recovery will have to remain on its trajectory and the Honda will have to be returned to competitiveness.
And if all that clicks, he’ll have to prove himself against a new generation of stars with the benefit of years of momentum. There’s a real risk that the sport has passed him by and that he’s been left too far on the back foot by years of physical interruption.
But would you really be willing to bet against Marc Márquez?
