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 Márquez, you just don’t know what he might do, just like you never knew what Kevin Schwantz might do. Impossible is a word that will 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 this individual puts on his helmet and goes out on track you know something is going in order 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 a new last-lap overtake since
Honda
His return is also unique. In seven decades of grand prix racing there’s never been the 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 their accident in Jerez in July 2020 and his Portimão return in April 2021. Plus this Sunday when he or she lines up on the grid it will be four months since his last race.
And how much does MotoGP need Márquez? Like the semi-desert around Aragón needs the rain. The last time MotoGP had a last-lap overtake with regard to the win was a full year ago from Aragón, whenever Márquez twice flung their Honda past eventual champion Pecco Bagnaia’s Ducati . In the 19 races given that then it’s been follow-my-leader all the particular way, with not one rider able to snatch victory from the leader at the last gasp.
Last period at Aragón, Márquez understood he didn’t have the outright speed to beat Bagnaia, but he had the go anyway, riding the kind of race that will Valentino Rossi rode with Laguna Seca in 2008, when the particular seven-times MotoGP champion battled with Casey Stoner , charging prior 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 did not work yet it was worth a go.
Márquez probably won’t battle for victory this weekend break, because that isn’t the plan.
