MotoGP Put On Notice
Time is running out for the MotoGP wannabes who have been winning without Marc Marquez.
The six-time world champion is still not giving a firm date for his return to the Repsol Honda team but makes it clear that he does not see a successor in the current MotoGP battle pack.
Fabio Quartararo took back-to-back wins for Yamaha in Spain soon after the nasty crash that left Marquez with a broken arm, but since then there have been only single wins for Brad Binder on KTM in the Czech Republic, then Andrea Dovizioso for Ducati and Miguel Oliviera on KTM in Austria, then Franco Morbidelli and Maverick Vinales with Yamaha in Italy.
Heading to the Catalan GP in Spain, which should have been his home race, the recuperating Marquez is not holding back.
“It’s strange, it’s strange because it looks like nobody wants to win,” he said.
“Nobody wants to be at the top. I mean is difficult to understand, but if you are a rider you can understand it a little bit.
“One thing is to be a rider that if you win, it will be fantastic and if you win it will be something incredible. But when you are the rider that needs to win then something changes and you have many more doubts because you don’t know if you should attack, if you should defend.
“You know when you are the rider that is coming from second place, third place, fourth place, and you have something in front of you, you have nothing to lose, you just attack and then you ride with more confidence because you don’t have anything to lose.
“But when you are at the top and you have to win, this is when the doubts start to be in your mind, in your body and it becomes more difficult.”
Marquez is heavily into training and recuperation for his race return and said he is getting more and more confident for his comeback.
“For like four, five weeks I was completely just on the sofa watching TV. But I started running and immediately from the first day I felt good and I started to see improvements, with cycling too.
“From the mental side it was hard in the beginning. Because, you know, there was nothing to do at home, the days and even the hours were very, very long but now we have a plan a for each day.
“We do two sessions of physio and then we also train in the gym with my trainer, the left arm, the legs, along with some cardio. So now the mental side is feeling much better, the moment where I suffer the most is during the race weekend because you are watching the race, all the practice sessions from the TV and it is not easy.
“I missed training, especially the first two weeks, but what I’m missing more is being on a motorbike. Now I start to feel ready, but this is when it becomes a little dangerous because when you feel ready, you want more and more.
But is Marquez able to set a firm timetable for his return to the track?
“Three months is a lot. When I was with the doctors we tried to understand and to listen to different opinions, different doctors and they said around three months.
“So, in which moment I don’t know. I know that I am closer to being on a bike, that is the most important,” he said.
