Opinion: Lewis Duncan

Motogp needs the Honda rider back on track for his star appeal and the benchmark he provides for the rest of the pack. His team has faith that he’ll return undiminished

“What Honda expects from him is irrelevant compared to what he expects of himself”

As a means to fill some of this seemingly endless lockdown void we’re currently observing, I recently rewatched the 2020 Spanish motorcycle Grand Prix. Last year’s Motogp season opener has now, of course, become a day of infamy that effectively ended Marc Marquez’s bid for a seventh title.

But it was so very nearly a day that would have been remembered as one of Marquez’s best. After shooting off-track at Jerez’s Turn 4 left-hander while leading on lap five of 25, Marquez began a comeback that displayed all his devastating talent as he carved back from 16th to podium contention by the 21st tour. A lap later, he crashed chasing Maverick Vinales and broke his arm.

Now, Motogp in 2020 was utterly breathtaking, arguably the best season in grand prix motorcycle racing’s 70-plus-year history. But rewatching that Spanish race was a reminder of how much we really missed Marquez and his genius on two wheels.

Last year’s totals of nine different winners and 15 podium finishers, plus four manufacturers taking victories with a mix of factory and satellite squads, was no fluke. It was the ultimate proof of Dorna Sports’rules concept, which began with the muchmaligned CRT (Claiming Rule Teams) regulations back in 2012.

But throughout the season it was repeatedly mentioned by riders that the championship was missing its reference, and they their true benchmark. Undoubtedly nine riders could win races again in 2021, but could they do so with Marquez present? That’s probably the biggest question of the many swirling ahead of the new campaign starting on 28 March.

Mercifully (and anyone not excited about this seriously needs to get over 2015), Marquez will be back in 2021, and hopefully sooner rather than later. His right arm has started to show signs of healing following December’s third operation, and he hasn’t ruled out making it to the grid for the Qatar Grand Prix, although he’s definitely out of this week’s Qatar test.

“Always I try to be optimistic and I try to have the next goal,”he told the world’s media during Honda’s 2021 launch on 22 February.

“So, my goal was try to be in the Qatar test. I will not be in the Qatar test, but during that week I will have a doctors’check, and then my second goal will try to be in the Qatar race. We’ll see if it’s possible.

“If it’s not possible, it will try to be in Qatar 2. If it’s not possible, we will try to be in Portimao [in mid-april]. But first of all, of course the most important thing is that the doctors check the bone consolidation is going in a good way, so when the doctor says,‘ok, the bone consolidation is fixed’, then we will continue with the rehabilitation.”

Marquez has fully come to terms with his“mistake”last July in trying to race in the Andalusian GP, just days after operation number one on his arm, and his race-by-race approach to his return is proof of that. As was his admission that even if doctors give him the green light to throw his leg back over his RC213V in mid-march, he’s actually not in the necessary shape to do so yet.

This leads to the other big question of 2021: what kind of Marquez will we get back? It’s widely expected that Honda will be able to just plug in and play its golden child. But he’s not raced since last July, and Marquez himself will place a lot of expectation on his own shoulders. Just as a journalist is often overcome with doubt at the start of a new season, wondering whether they can get back into the swing of things and resume as they were when the previous campaign finished, imagine the anxiety six-time Motogp world champion Marquez will be carrying as he tries to get back to normal!

From Honda’s point of view, what it expects from him is irrelevant compared to what he expects of himself. And whatever the case, the team believes that Marquez will find a way to be his old self eventually.“the only thing I know is that he will find a way to still be Marc Marquez, and this you can only do by yourself,” Honda team boss Alberto Puig noted.“of course, the team will help him, we will support him like always at 100 per cent, but what we expect, what we hope, what we think, is nothing. The important thing is what he expects from himself and what he thinks he must do to go back to his full potential.”

When a date for his comeback is finally locked in, expectation from fans and the media will skyrocket. But Marquez must be afforded space to get up to speed without pressure. With this, by the end of the year the old Marquez will have returned in full bloom.

And Motogp as a whole needs this. Firstly, because of the blockbuster spectacle that comes with Marquez, but also to offer the rest of the grid the benchmark they’ve been missing. If they can prove themselves to be just as successful with a fully fit Marquez present, it will be proof beyond doubt that

2020 really is Motogp’s normal.