– On May 9, MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez crashed heavily in the sprint of the France weekend in Le Mans and injured his right foot. The very next day, he underwent surgery in Spain, not only on the broken fifth metatarsal bone of his right foot but also on his right shoulder, which had been affected for years.
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Marquez did not re-injure his shoulder in the Le Mans sprint crash, but a screw from a previous operation had pressed on a nerve, which occasionally limited Marquez while riding his MotoGP bike this season. On Friday in Mugello, the training day for the Italian Grand Prix, Marquez sat on his factory Ducati for the first time since the double operation.
In the first free practice in the morning, the seven-time and reigning MotoGP world champion finished P15 after 13 laps. In the afternoon practice, which decided direct entry into the Q2 segment of qualifying, Marquez achieved P6 with full commitment and thus actually secured direct entry to Q2 for Saturday. Nevertheless, he urges caution. He does not see himself ready for a top-5 result this weekend.
“When I have the helmet on, I am mentally ready. I am passionate and know that I have to be passionate. But the truth is also that it gets harder as soon as I put the helmet on,” says Marquez, explaining how he managed P6 in the afternoon.
“My riding style is always like this: If someone is in front of me, I try to overtake them. Of course, I took some risks on that one lap today. But at the moment, I am not ready to fight for the top 5 at all. I have no goal regarding a lap time, no goal regarding a position. I only have the goal to keep improving,” says Marquez.
Although the recent shoulder operation fixed the underlying problem that had hindered him since the start of the season, Marquez expects the Mugello weekend to get harder for him day by day.
“I did not feel any tingling from nerve friction. But it is also true that I expected to feel better on the bike. I expected to feel better in the first free practice,” says the Ducati factory rider and admits: “Actually, I felt worse than I thought.”
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“I have to be patient. I have learned that,” says Marquez, whose MotoGP years from 2020 to 2023 featured almost as many missed race weekends as contested race weekends. The starting point for his long suffering was the severe crash in Jerez 2020, where he broke his right upper arm and then returned too quickly, which worsened the injury.
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Today Marquez knows: “The goal now is to rebuild my arm. We now have to find out where the limit is for this arm, which has undergone seven operations from the elbow to the shoulder.”
Looking ahead to qualifying in Mugello, Marquez says: “If I have to start twelfth, then I will do that. Theoretically, I should feel worse here the longer the weekend lasts. Especially in right-hand corners and also in direction changes, I still lose time.”
Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia, who finished the Friday afternoon practice in Mugello in P2, describes what he noticed about Marquez: “I feel that he is managing his strength. He does that well. If he has to do a fast lap, then he does it. I think he is saving his strength for the races.”
Marquez himself admits that he is in a similar situation as at the start of the season. Back then, he was unsure how long it would take to fully recover from the injuries from the crash at the Indonesia weekend 2025 in Mandalika. So he says now on Friday in Mugello: “I am coming back cautiously, as was already the case during the winter test rides. I don’t know what my 100 percent is.”
“The most important thing is,” Marquez continues, “that I am mentally ready and want to try to reach my 100 percent again. Because if you are not mentally ready, then it is better to give up. So yes, I am ready, I will try. Maybe I won’t make it, maybe I will. We might have the answer in a month, maybe in two weeks or maybe in two months.”
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