Honda’s battered and bruised six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez admits he is “not ready to push again” coming into the Dutch TT weekend at Assen.
Marquez’s nightmarish outing the previous weekend at the Sachsenring ended after a crash in Sunday morning warm-up, the fifth of the weekend, that led to him withdrawing as he didn’t feel in a fit state to continue.
It meant that he brought home zero points from a track that had brought him nothing but massive success over the preceding decade.
And, with Marquez diagnosed with a left thumb fracture (and, later, a rib fracture) in the crash and managing an ankle injury, too, it also meant he faced a race against time to get himself into shape for Assen.
Speaking to MotoGP.com, he described himself as being “limited” but ready to race.
Injury detail
Marquez elaborated on that in the official pre-event press conference: “We did a very good job these last three days in Madrid, together with my medical team and physiotherapist team.
“The ankle was one of the biggest problems before coming here, because the inflammation was a lot. But they did a very good job, and now I think will be not a big problem.
“In the thumb I have… it’s broken, but luckily for me it’s just the last part, so this will be not a big problem.
“Just the rib, I have a cracked second rib, this will be a problem because as soon as I breathe or if I push with my arm, I feel [it].
"I don't feel ready to race" 🎙️ @marcmarquez93
The Spaniard left the @HRC_MotoGP truck with a bandage on his fractured thumb #GermanGP 🇩🇪 pic.twitter.com/vXWiiQjgDV
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) June 18, 2023
“But anyway, let’s see. Starting from FP1, step by step.”
Marquez said it would be similar to “the last two seasons” when he was still feeling the after-effects of his arm break at Jerez.
A fourth surgery was the breakthrough he’d sought, and “in Mugello and Germany, I already said that, about physical condition, I felt in one of my best moments. Also in Portimao [at the start of the season].”
“For that reason I was able to be in those top positions,” he continued. “Just riding… over the limit, most of the time. So, yeah, here, obviously after five crashes last weekend I’m not ready to push again. So, time to step back and just keep riding and get some information.
“If you’re not ready [and in] physical condition, then you cannot find these last three-four tenths that normally, you need to push a lot on the change of direction, in the braking area. So, this weekend, we’ll see, it depends, maybe I’m smoother and I’m faster, you never know!
“But, this is one of those weekends that you arrive and you don’t feel ready to push. In Germany I was ready to push and I pushed so much.”
Evidence of commitment
Marquez repeatedly reiterated that his Assen outing was a data-gathering mission for Honda, and also emphasised the fact that its two other “main riders” – Joan Mir and LCR’s Alex Rins, replaced this weekend by Iker Lecuona and Stefan Bradl respectively – were absent through injury.
And while a lot has been made over the torrid end to his German Grand Prix weekend, Marquez said his return to Assen was evidence of his commitment – even though he shied away from directly affirming that he would continue with Honda in 2024, the last year of his current four-year deal, when specifically asked by MotoGP.com.
“Honestly speaking, I didn’t read a lot,” he said of the coverage of his German GP exit.
“I was focused, I’m always focusing on myself and I had a lot of work to do with the physios and on the gym these last days.
“But as you see, if I’m here with all these injuries, it’s because my commitment with Honda is maximum and I want to continue to work with this project to improve for the future. And yeah, my commitment is 100 percent and for that reason I’m here.”
The big one
A painful start to the day for @marcmarquez93 💥
That's a vicious T7 tumble for the #93 ⚠️#GermanGP 🇩🇪 pic.twitter.com/pN1FGlvGmA
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) June 18, 2023
Marquez seemed to acknowledge the fifth crash at the Sachsenring still lingered over him, as unlike his hat-trick of falls in qualifying the day prior it was difficult to understand.
And when he was told that Honda stablemate Takaaki Nakagami – who had followed Marquez on track in that session – felt the Spaniard did nothing wrong to cause the shunt and was asked whether something had broken on the Honda RC213V, Marquez said: “I mean, was not any problem on the bike.
“Already in FP1 I had a moment there, then I had another moment at Turn 11 that I nearly had another highside.
“So, yeah, it’s one of the problems that we have, that we need to fix for the future. But it’s true that on that warm-up crash, I was not pushing. I was riding exactly the same like the previous lap.”
Marquez pointed out that that previous lap, a 1m22.287s on a fresh hard front and fresh medium rear, was “a slow pace in Sachsenring with a new tyre”.
“So I was doing exactly the same [when I crashed], and you cannot lie about this because the data is there.
“And yeah, for some reason just the rear started to go away and nobody stopped that slide, and I couldn’t control.”
“Nobody stopped that slide” could be a reference to the bike’s to the bike’s electronics failing to intervene, which has been tipped as a reason for the crash.
Earlier on Thursday, Nakagami had acknowledged it as a potential culprit behind Honda riders’ much-higher-than-optimal rate of highside crashes.
