Marquez reveals undiagnosed issue that sabotaged his 2026
Reigning MotoGP champion Marc Marquez has revealed he was slated for surgery even before fracturing his foot in a sprint crash at Le Mans.
The sprint fall has left Marquez 51 points back from the championship lead and set to miss the French Grand Prix and the Catalan Grand Prix.
He would have contested the races otherwise, but Marquez said he would've been going under the knife for corrective work on his right shoulder in any case after Barcelona.
And this is why he felt the Le Mans injury, though coming in a "big, very high-speed crash", came at a less-costly time.
"It's not a very big injury but arrives at the correct time - because already before here we planned to have a surgery after Catalunya, in my right shoulder," Marquez explained.
"I was working hard these first races at home and for some reason after Jerez I realised that something wasn't working well. I went to the doctors and I said 'something is going on here because at home I'm feeling OK, riding motocross I'm feeling OK, I arrive [to the track] and I'm riding a MotoGP bike and I feel the right arm destroyed, something is going on'."
Marquez explained that he has struggled with his right shoulder since the big crash with Marco Bezzecchi at Mandalika last year.
It has now been discovered that, while the primary injury had been treated successfully, he had sustained damage to screws that were already there from past surgical work - and that one of those screws was affecting the radial nerve, but only when in riding position on a MotoGP bike.
"Then for that reason I was fast in some times, I don't know how, I don't know why - but I was not constant and strange crashes arrived.
"And for that reason also this weekend I was extra careful, to try to survive, but the body is not following what I want."
Marquez said he had kept this quiet earlier in the MotoGP weekend because "I don't like to cry [complain] in front of a microphone".
He said he already knew he was "not ready to fight for the championship", which now looks all but impossible.
"As I showed today in Q1, I can be fast, yeah, I know how to ride these bikes. But as I showed today also [in the sprint crash], I can have a stupid mistake without knowing what's going on. Because when something is touching the nerve, the arm is not following what you want to do."
However, Marquez expects the recovery from this next shoulder operation to be relatively uncomplicated.
"For sure Catalunya I will not race and then we will understand step by step for Mugello."
