Throughout his career, Marc Marquez has never let an injury get the better of him. The champion from Cervera has always managed to bounce back from every setback and return to the track with even more determination and drive than before.
He proved this once again this season, securing back-to-back victories at Brno and Balaton just a few weeks after undergoing two surgeries following his crash in the Sprint race at Le Mans: surgery on his right foot to stabilize a fracture of the fifth metatarsal and a scheduled procedure on his right shoulder to remove two screws and a bone fragment that, by pressing on the radial nerve, were causing numbness and making it difficult for him to ride. This marks his seventh surgery on the arm he injured at Jerez in 2020.
The latest entry on a long list of surgeries and injuries for the older of the Marquez brothers, who, in an exclusive interview with DAZN, opened up about the suffering he has endured in recent years and how close he came to retiring at the end of this season. That idea was set aside in light of his renewed physical condition, in favor of a two-year contract extension with Ducati.
“More than a question of the brand, it was about deciding whether or not to continue in MotoGP. Mentally, in the first part of the season, I didn’t see a way to do it. My arm was giving me strange problems—there were moments of unexpected weakness, tingling... I couldn’t go on like that; I didn’t see myself being able to do another two years. It was impossible both mentally and physically,” revealed the Spanish rider, who had already regained his form upon his return at Mugello.
“After the last surgery, I’ve been feeling better and better. Most importantly, I no longer have any neurological issues, which was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Not because of the pain, but because of the uncertainty,” he explained, though he acknowledged that: “The intensity of Balaton and, above all, Brno can’t be sustained for 22 races.”
Shaped and, in part, changed—at least in terms of his approach—by the hardships of the past six years, Marc admitted he isn’t obsessed with the idea of winning his tenth World Championship and thus equaling Giacomo Agostini’s record for titles in the premier class. Even though he’s fully in the running for the title.
“I’d be extremely proud to win a tenth title. If I’d ended up with eight, I wouldn’t have liked it at all, but finishing with nine or ten world titles won’t change my life—I won’t be any happier or any less happy,” he admitted. “What I want is to finish (my career) having fun; I don’t want to burn myself out because of MotoGP. It’s hard to say, but there have been moments when I felt like I didn’t want to step into the paddock.”
Márquez wants to put the pain behind him, which is why he revealed he doesn’t feel ready to watch the Netflix documentary on Rafael Nadal right now: “I’m not mentally ready to watch it, because it’s about suffering and the end of his career.”