Marc Marquez’s Medical Break May Cost Honda

There are still a lot of critical choices to be made for 2023 and beyond, with only two races left before MotoGP takes a five-week summer vacation. Honda racer Marc Marquez’s decision to retire indefinitely while undergoing further surgery could not have come at a worse moment for the eight-time world champion or his Honda team, which is attempting to devise a future-proof plan.

Marquez will have a fourth operation on his right upper arm this week, almost 23 months after breaking it in a car accident in Jerez. It’s a make-or-break procedure that will either solve all of his problems and allow him to return to winning ways, or it will fail and keep him in the chronic pain he’s already in, and it’s no exaggeration to say that his entire racing career is on the line.

His recovery period after the procedure, which will take place at Minnesota’s world-renowned Mayo Clinic, is unclear. Doctors informed the 29-year-old that if he wanted to go back on a MotoGP bike as soon as possible, he shouldn’t bother coming for treatment.

His recovery may take months rather than weeks, and there’s even a potential that he won’t be back in play until 2022, according to some reports.

Despite a brief return in mid-2021, when he picked up a handful of racing wins before being sidelined again with a concussion and double vision, which he repeated in early 2022, his recovery period from all of his ailments will effectively equate to three entire seasons.

He is, of course, the beneficiary of a long-term deal with Honda that keeps him on the bike until at least the end of 2024: another two full seasons, and until the conclusion of the contract period presently being negotiated by his competitors, not the current one for the majority of the grid.

That will give him some peace of mind, knowing that he has the time he needs to properly recuperate while remaining employed – but it will create a lot of worry for his employer.

It was with the promise of having a totally healthy and utterly dominant champion to keep building up victories and championships when Marquez and Honda inked that record-breaking agreement (both in terms of length and compensation). It happened in the first months of 2020, a few months after Marquez ended the 2019 MotoGP season with the largest victory margin in history and a podium in every race.

It’s fair to say that the contract (rumoured to be worth around €25 million per year for four years, more than double any previous MotoGP salary) was an example of Honda putting all its eggs in one basket, securing its future by securing the most dominant champion in Grand Prix motorcycle racing since previous Repsol racer Mick Doohan.

However, that tactic appears to have failed recently. Marquez is out, and current teammate Pol Espargaro isn’t performing. Espargaro was brought in as a stable set of hands after two seasons of near upheaval following Dani Pedrosa’s departure.