Don’t expect much from Marc Márquez when he returns to action at Aragón this weekend.
Wait, I’ll rewrite that.
Don’t expect much from Marc Márquez when he returns to action at Aragón this weekend, but…
That’s the thing about Marquez, you just don’t know what he might do, just like you never knew what Kevin Schwantz might do. Impossible is a word that doesn’t exist for riders like these.
“With Marc everything is on another planet,” confirms his team manager Alberto Puig. “Obviously from a racing point of view the guy is an animal. When he puts on his helmet and goes out on track you know something is going to happen, something special.”
Of course, Márquez’s return to action at Aragón will be different. He rode his last race at Mugello at the end of May, then underwent the biggest operation he’s ever had. And he’s had a few.
Márquez chasing Aragón winner Bagnaia last year – MotoGP hasn’t had a last-lap overtake since
Honda
His return is also unique. In seven decades of grand prix racing there’s never been a champion who’s spent so much time injured without deciding that enough is enough. The six-time MotoGP king didn’t ride a MotoGP bike for nine months between his accident at Jerez in July 2020 and his Portimão return in April 2021. And this Sunday when he lines up on the grid it will be four months since his last race.
And how much does MotoGP need Marquez? Like the semi-desert around Aragon needs the rain. The last time MotoGP had a last-lap overtake for the win was a full year ago at Aragón, when Márquez twice flung his Honda past eventual winner Pecco Bagnaia’s Ducati. In the 19 races since then it’s been follow my leader all the way, with not one rider able to snatch victory from the leader at the last gasp.
Last time at Aragón, Márquez knew he didn’t have the outright speed to beat Bagnaia, but he had a go anyway, riding the kind of race that Valentino Rossi rode at Laguna Seca in 2008, when the seven-times MotoGP champion battled with Casey Stoner, charging past whenever he could, regardless of whether he could make the pass stick, hoping to disrupt Bagnaia’s progress and perhaps rattle him into a mistake. It didn’t work but it was worth a go.
Marquez probably won’t battle for victory this weekend, because that isn’t the plan.