Why Marquez isn't out of the MotoGP title fight yet

Marc Marquez's heavy crash on lap 22 of Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix has blown the doors off of the 2020 MotoGP title fight, as the reigning world champion's participation in this week's Grand Prix of Andalusia is in serious doubt owing to a broken right arm.

The Honda rider will be in Barcelona on Monday with the view to having surgery to have the bone fixed on Tuesday, but the severity of the injury remains unknown.

Marquez broke his humerus bone when he was clattered by the front wheel of his Honda and landed awkwardly in the gravel of Turn 3 at Jerez. The problem with this type of break is the high risk of the bone severing the radial nerve - potentially career-ending for a motorcycle racer.

As MotoGP's resident doctor Angel Charte said on Sunday: "It was a high-energy fall, with chest trauma to the right side. Right arm with pneumatic impact, third half of the humerus, although not fully displaced, with an immobilised lesion. He will be transferred to Barcelona for definitive treatment. He has a very close nerve in the fracture, it may not have happened, but it may have happened that it was touched and makes recovery difficult.

"Without a doubt, we will have to fix the fracture with a type of implant, but until we do more radiological tests we will not confirm the treatment. Marc is very sore, it is a strange and rare fracture, a blow from the tyre. We have had to sedate him, reduce the fracture and treat him for chest trauma."

Marquez has known serious injury before. A crash at Sepang in 2011 caused a potentially career-ending eye injury, and robbed him of the Moto2 crown in his debut year. In 2018, he dislocated his shoulder in a training incident and the issue - which he kept to himself - recurred across the campaign.

So bad was the dislocation, when he was sedated ahead of surgery in the off-season, the shoulder instantly fell out of its socket as his muscles relaxed.

It made the fact that he dominated that year's championship by 76 points over Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso all that more incredible, as Dr Xavier Mir explained at the time: "I almost do not understand how he was able to win the world title like that, it gives him more merit."

We won't know the extent of Marquez's injury until after he's had the operation on Tuesday, but if we take the best case scenario of him being able to race again at round three in the Czech Republic, completely ruling him out of the 2020 title fight isn't a straightforward thing.

Prior to the crash in Sunday's Jerez race, Marquez stunned the world with his most incredible save. The front end of his RC213V folded as he went through the fast left Turn 4, a moment caused by the surprising lower grip of the track on Sunday, and the Honda's "critical" - as Cal Crutchlow described to Autosport earlier in the weekend - front end.

Practice revealed a worrying continuing of Yamaha's pace deficit, with Quartararo expressing concern for when MotoGP visits more power-dependent circuits - of which Brno and the Red Bull Ring very much are

Marquez managed to pick the bike up with his body and keep it upright as he went dirt tracking through the gravel.

What followed was an immense recovery, Marquez carving his way through the pack as if he was playing a video game with the opponent AI turned down at 50%. By lap 10 he was into the top 10 again, and by lap 20 he was back facing the rear of Maverick Vinales' Yamaha having passed him on lap three of the race.

From lap 10 through to lap 21 - the last one Marquez completed before his crash - he lapped quicker than race leader and eventual winner Fabio Quartararo. As he started lap 21, Marquez was just 5.3 seconds behind the SRT rider and was three tenths quicker than him.

Had he not had his off in the early stages, Marquez would have very easily built up that advantage over the pack and then some.

Should Marquez be absent from this weekend's second outing at Jerez, and that is more than likely, he'll be 50 point in arrears should he stage his return at Brno at the start of August. That's a sizable disadvantage to have, and indeed a huge advantage for whoever is leading the championship.

But it's that point which will remain in flux.

While a Yamaha 1-2 in the Spanish Grand Prix, with Dovizioso leading fellow Ducati rider Jack Miller in third, on paper shows Marquez's main rivals in good stead, the reality is far from that.

Practice revealed a worrying continuing of Yamaha's top speed deficit, with Quartararo expressing concern for when MotoGP visits more power-dependent circuits - of which Brno and the Red Bull Ring very much are.

"The problem is that it's the same as last year," Quartararo said on Friday. "I feel that Yamaha made a small step in top speed, but the other brands made a step also. So, the problem we have [is we're] 12km/h [down] here. I am a little bit afraid of [somewhere like] Barcelona, that we [might] be at 20km/h [down]. So, this is something that I need to worry about."

On the flipside, Brno and the Red Bull Ring are the perfect circuits for Ducati. Dovizioso won there in 2018, and has two victories to his credit in Austria. Yamaha endured a tough Brno race last year, with Valentino Rossi, Quartararo and Vinales sixth, seventh and 10th. Quartararo did bag a podium at the Red Bull Ring, but he was never a threat for the win.

Vinales could only keep close to Marquez through the tighter last sector of the Jerez circuit after the Honda had rocketed past him, while Quartararo got mired behind the Pramac Ducatis in the early stages and struggled to find a way past as they left him behind on the straights.

So Dovizioso, Jack Miller and even Francesco Bagnaia are likely to be the favourites when the championship hits Brno and the Red Bull Ring. But seizing victory might be tough at the second Jerez race.

Dovizioso is struggling with Michelin's new construction rear tyre, the extra grip it offers not allowing him to spin the rear as before and get the bike turned. The Pramac duo have been having less of an issue with the new rubber, but Miller's race was compromised by some numbness in his arms - which, he believes, was caused by the handlebars not being in the optimal position.

With Quartararo and Vinales the strongest pair behind Marquez on race pace throughout the weekend, the Honda's absence puts them in a better position. But current form suggests the following three rounds will be about damage limitation.

It is undeniable that Marquez's hideous Spanish GP crash has completely transformed this 2020 title fight

The swinging of the pendulum will be exactly what Marquez wants. If one of his rivals is fine one week and struggling the next, and vice versa, the points they take away from him are reduced.

And there's Marquez himself. His steely determination has seldom seen injury get in his way. He won the opening race of 2014 in Qatar just weeks after breaking his leg. At Jerez in 2016, he finished on the podium carrying a broken wrist, and then there's his odds-defying 2018 domination.

It is undeniable that Marquez's hideous Spanish GP crash has completely transformed this 2020 title fight.

But when the original season was set to start in Qatar back in March, and doubts surrounded Marquez's fitness - which he claimed was only at "70%" following surgery on yet another dislocated shoulder he suffered at the Malaysian Grand Prix last year - Honda team boss Alberto Puig was adamant that his rider would have "fought like hell" to win at Losail.

You can bet that the same mentality will consume Marquez upon his return.