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Marc Marquez says that his latest return to MotoGP action has so far been a success – but that it’ll take a second day of riding on Wednesday at Misano before the Repsol Honda rider fully understands his condition and his progress after the latest major surgery on his damaged right arm.
He joined the two-day post-race test at the Italian circuit, returning to track for the first time since Mugello in late May. Since then, he’s undergone yet another major operation to his right humerus, having the bone surgically rebroken and twisted a huge 34º back into its original location following a failure to set correctly after his initial rushed return to action in July 2020.
Marking the second time back on a motorcycle since being given the clearance from his doctors two weeks ago, he rode a supersport machine at the Motorland Aragon circuit last week, but was forced to split his two-day test there with a rest day in between.
However, easing back into MotoGP action with his team at Misano and completing 39 laps on the opening day, he believes that he’s now in a position to continue on the second day of the test on Wednesday without a break.
“I only did two weeks’ gym and two days on a bike then got straight onto a MotoGP bike,” he explained, “so the timing is quite tight and there’s still a long way to go. But it’s true that I feel good. I didn’t enjoy the first run, because the bikes are too fast, but then from that point I started to enjoy it a bit more. I’m still riding by instinct, because after 100 days you’re riding like this. You don’t know how you’re doing. But the laptime wasn’t bad.
MARC. IS. BACK! 💪
Watch the long-awaited moments as @marcmarquez93 returned to action at the #MisanoTest! 🙌#MotoGP pic.twitter.com/HIQXArhVPR
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 6, 2022
“That wasn’t the most important though. The most important was that the 40 laps today were accepted in a good way by my body, my arm. It’s true that I was doing very short runs because we still need to work quite a lot for long runs.
“I was touching the shoulder, the arm afterwards because for one year and a half the muscles were working in a different way. They’re working now in the proper way, but they’re not ready to hold all this torque, all this power, of the bike.”
Despite being someone who absolutely loves to ride motorcycles, though, the return to action wasn’t necessarily something that Marquez enjoyed, jumping straight into a post-race test against a load of up-to-speed rivals after over three months away from his own machine – something that he says he felt right away.
“I started to enjoy it in the final runs, but at the start I didn’t a lot,” he admitted. “Honestly speaking, I was suffering more than enjoying, but this is normal on the first day. Even if you sometimes do a normal preseason, the first day in Qatar you struggle because these bikes are so powerful. You can be very fit but it’s different on the bike.
“Today I went out and everyone else was super fast. They’re coming with a different rhythm, from a race weekend, and I was just trying to concentrate on my way, concentrating on how to ride the bike, and especially concentrating on my position, then tomorrow we’ll try to do another step.”
And with the opening day now completed successfully, it means that the plan on day two is to expand his time on the bike further and to see how he feels when he attempts to, in particular, complete some longer runs.
“The plan today was 40 laps, and I did 39 then stopped at midday,” the six-time MotoGP champion explained. “We did exactly the plan that we wrote yesterday, and I already asked if maybe I can ride this afternoon and they stopped me! Today is the first day, and we stopped at midday to try and ride tomorrow.
“Now I’ll have some special work with ice and physio to try and control the recovery of the muscles. The pain is not too much but the recovery is important. If tomorrow I have a good feeling then the plan is to continue riding, and if I can do more laps than today then that’s good.”
The results of that plan will be what determines what comes next in his recuperation, too, with no attempt to rush back into action planned before he’s fully ready for it – and with not just the lap times on Wednesday but also the feeling in the days that follow the key determinator as to whether we see him back in race action at Aragon in ten days’ time.
“It’s too early to understand,” he admitted to The Race, “especially because if today had been a race distance it would have been impossible to finish. Maybe ten laps in a row, but 27? I’m far from being able to do that.
“Tomorrow, we’ll understand if I did one step or not. It’ll be important to ride, it’ll be important to understand on Thursday and Friday how the body has accepted it, if I feel a step. Sometimes afterwards you go one step behind because you start to feel some pain again. So now it’s time to understand every day how I feel and to especially follow and understand what the body is asking for.”
