On Saturday after qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, Honda announced that Marquez would be travelling to Rochester, Minnesota to have a fourth operation on the right arm he badly broke back in 2020.
Marquez has suffered with the arm ever since he returned to action last April, with his problems only heightened by a radically overhauled 2022 Honda that has stopped him from riding him in his natural style.
The six-time MotoGP world champion has been evaluating this operation since last October, and after numerous consultations was given the green light to do so on Friday.
Marquez says he has been prompted into the surgery because “I’m not enjoying” riding right now and is “suffering a lot”, and having more surgery is the only way to get back to full fitness.
“Since I came back riding the bike, I feel a big limitation,” Marquez said on Saturday at Mugello.
“Even like this, I never give up, I keep pushing, keep working, doing what the doctors say.
“I ask the opinion from Dr Angel Cotorro that since last few months I start working with him to make this last chance to my arm.
“But I realise this season that I’m not enjoying, I’m just suffering a lot, a lot of pain, I don’t have power, I cannot ride like I want.
“I’m starting to injure the left shoulder because I’m pushing too much with the left arm.
“My performance is not bad but it’s not the one that I want, so together with the doctors, we evaluate, already a long time ago.
“In October when I had the first injury in my vision, I said to them ‘why don’t we consider to make something in that arm,’ but the bone was not fixed completely and they said the risk was too big and the first thing was myself, so I keep calm.
“Then I come back, I worked a lot during these four months, but I don’t see any improvement.
“Then I had another meeting with them after Jerez where we evaluate again everything and then they start to consider another operation.”
He added: “[It] looks like a nightmare but I believe soon I will come back. It will be hard, I know that, but I don’t know the time.
“But the moment to do is now because for them it’s no doubt, there is a problem, the rotation is too big and yeah, we will see if we can come back soon, but no rush.”
Marquez says he was referred to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota as his current doctors felt Dr. Joaquin Sanchez is “the best in the world”, and explained that 3D printing of his bone helped prompt his decision to have more surgery.
“You will not believe me maybe, but I had a phone call yesterday at 12 between practice because in the Mayo Clinic, Dr Joaquin Sanchez was printing my bones in 3D just to evaluate exactly the rotation,” Marquez explained.
“And at 12 o’clock he called me and said ‘[there’s] no doubt, come. The rotation is too big, I don’t know what you are doing but you are doing it, so come here and we will fix it.’
“Of course here will be an operation but they believe a lot in that. It was exactly like this.”
