Honda announced this Wednesday morning that Marc Márquez has recovered from the eye injury he suffered after the fall in the warm up of the Indonesian Grand Prix , and that he will travel to the United States today to compete in the Austin race, one of the their talisman circuits.
“Marc has been cleared to return to competition after his crash in the Indonesian Grand Prix warm up and subsequent diplopia. The Repsol Honda Team rider has followed the planned treatment and is ready to return to action at the fourth round of the World Championship, the Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin, Texas,” says the HRC statement.
The Spanish rider reported through his social networks on Tuesday that he was at the Alcarràs Circuit, near Lleida, riding a Honda CBR600RR sports street bike, with the intention of verifying that in addition to having regained normal vision, it is stable on top of a motorcycle at high speeds. After testing, the pilot uploaded a new photo, already at home, with the following phrase: “it’s time to breathe and decide”, a decision that came early this morning.
“Of course I’m very happy to be back, it’s a great feeling and especially to do it at one of my favorite circuits. Regardless of the situation, I really enjoy driving in Texas and I have incredible memories there. We have work to do after losing two races and the whole weekend in Argentina, so I’m not here to set a goal at the moment. There are many things to do and consider, but the important thing is that we get back on the bike this weekend”, explains the rider in the note made public by Honda this morning.
Márquez uploaded a video to his social networks on Sunday training in a gym in Madrid, where he has lived since this year to be close to the medical team that controls the total rehabilitation of the injured arm in July 2020 in Jerez, and that has kept him since then physically depleted. In the post, the Catalan left a ‘message’ with background music that gave clues about an immediate return, which suggested that he had regained normal vision and his intention to go to Austin.
To that 2020 injury to his right arm that kept him out for almost a year, a mishap in an optic nerve of the left eye was added in October 2021, reproducing the diplopia (double vision) that he already suffered in his youth at the CEV and during the 2011 season, when he was racing in Moto2.
After hitting his head practicing motocross, Márquez was out for three months, missing the last two races of 2021 (Algarve and Valencia), and compromising winter preparation.
Finally, Marc arrived just in time for the pre-season in Malaysia and Indonesia, in February, and reappeared in the first race of the course, in Qatar, where he was fifth.
In the second stop on the calendar, again in Mandalika, Márquez suffered up to four falls during the weekend’s practice sessions, the last chilling one, in the final part of the warm up, hitting his head and suffering a severe concussion.
The doctors of the championship, in agreement with the team and the pilot, decided to declare him unfit for the race, and on the trip back to Europe, as the pilot explained, the problem of double vision was reproduced.
The good news is that the runner’s trusted ophthalmologist, Dr. Sánchez Dalmau , issued a more favorable diagnosis regarding the 2021 injury, assuring that the visual distortion was, this time, milder.
Finally, as Marc already announced with his video on the networks on Sunday and confirmed this Tuesday, the recovery has been faster than expected and after 20 days of care he will be able to reappear in Austin this coming weekend.
Márquez is now 15th overall in the MotoGP World Championship with 11 points, 34 behind the new leader of the competition, Aleix Espargaró (45), but not so far behind the main favorites, such as Fabio Quartararo (35), Joan Mir (33) or Pecco Bagnaia who only has one point more than Marc without missing a race.
