Why Marc Marquez has to reinvent himself as a MotoGP rider

Ten months have passed since Marc Marquez underwent his third operation on the right humerus he badly broke in last July's Spanish Grand Prix - enough time for his arm to recover most of the strength and mobility it will ever have. Between that and the testimony of the rider himself and his entourage, it is logical to think that the great dominator of the MotoGP World Championship in the last decade will have to reinvent himself to fight for the crown again.

Last Sunday, in Austin, the Honda rider claimed his second victory since his comeback in mid-April after nine months on the sidelines due to the management of the injury he suffered at Jerez. This latest triumph at the Circuit of the Americas was every bit as convincing as his win at the Sachsenring in June.

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The forcefulness that led him to victory was similar to the one he displayed before breaking his arm, when he was the lord and master of the world championship. In fact, the gap between him and second-placed Fabio Quartararo this time was 4.6 seconds, the second widest in his favour in Austin, second only to the 6.1s he took from Jorge Lorenzo in the 2016 edition.

The common denominator between the victories in Germany and the United States is that both circuits are counter-clockwise, so most of the corners are left-handed. This type of track has always been particularly good for Marquez. This preference is even more accentuated now that he is suffering from an evident limitation in his right arm, due to the stress that the area has received.

Before the fall at Jerez last year, Marquez had already undergone surgery to resolve the dislocation problems in both shoulders that had been tormenting him in recent times. Then came the three operations in six months: the first to fit the plate in his arm after the crash, the second, less than a week later, when the plate broke, and the third in December when an infection was detected in the surgery site.

It is no coincidence that the best version of the #93 has emerged at Sachsenring, Texas and Aragon, where he finished second after fighting for the win until the last lap with Francesco Bagnaia, three circuits with the same direction of rotation. Apart from these, his best result was fourth place at Misano, a grand prix where he himself said he struggled with pain.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

His superiority last Sunday led many to believe that he will soon be the rider he was before the accident. However, Marquez took it upon himself to put the handbrake on as soon as he stepped off the podium, recalling that the sensations he has on the right side of his body are not at all the same as they were then, and that the handicap he suffers in the right-hand corners is more than considerable.

"Left-handed circuits have always been my favourite, but the injury still makes that difference grow," he said. "It's easy to understand: in a left-hand corner I can turn and push with my triceps, but in right-hand corners, I can't. It's difficult to ride like that, so that's why it's so hard. Riding like that is difficult, that's why I can't save the crashes.

"I don't know exactly how I am physically. I'm still far from what I can do with my left arm. But it's getting easier and easier for me to hold my position under braking. I still can't skid and tuck the bike, which was one of my strong points. Now I enter the turns like the others."

"It's been 10 months since the last surgery. In most similar cases, the most obvious improvement takes place before that period. From now on, his evolution will be slower and he probably won't have much further to go" a medical expert on Marquez's recover

One of the best people to compare the two versions of the rider is Santi Hernandez, his crew chief in the Repsol Honda team garage.

"Compared to the Marc we knew before, this time we saw him win in a different way," Hernandez said. "Before [the injury] we saw him make much more aggressive changes of direction, more agile. His riding style now is much more different."

If we leave aside the visual perceptions, the stopwatch ratifies that argument. If in previous editions of the Grand Prix of the Americas, the first sector of the circuit, the most twisty, was one of the sections in which he was most distant from his rivals, this year his lap times there were almost identical to those of Quartararo, and around a tenth slower than those of third-placed Bagnaia's.

No one outside Marquez's inner circle knows in detail the record of that right arm. But the general feeling around the MotoGP grid is that, physically, the HRC flag-bearer suffers more than he shows.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

"Marc is capable of fighting for the victory despite not being well. Without having the details, I think he is physically very bad; what he is doing is crazy," Andrea Dovizioso, who battled Marquez for the title from 2017-2019 said.

As is logical, Marquez is permanently thinking about his right arm; about how to gain strength and mobility, but he also needs to isolate that issue from time to time after it has practically monopolised his day-to-day life for more than a year now.

"I haven't seen the medical file, but it's been 10 months since the last surgery. In most similar cases, the most obvious improvement takes place before that period. From now on, his evolution will be slower and he probably won't have much further to go," a specialist orthopaedic surgeon who has operated on several MotoGP riders told Autosport.

It is difficult to guess what the Catalan rider's next move will be. But he is absolutely determined to fight for the title again - even if he has to reinvent himself and race differently than before the accident, especially on those circuits that twist to the right, which take the majority on the current calendar.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Dorna