The MotoGP champion who came back from hell

Marc Marquez’s motorcycle racing career was always tied to success. From a very young age, the Spaniard began winning in categories where his rivals were, in some cases, more than 30 centimetres taller. Besides being young in age, he was small in stature, which made it even more striking to see him on the podiums at local tracks where he competed as a child.

But Marquez’s tenacity matched his talent and courage, and he worked his way up to the World Speed Championship, which he joined in 2008 aged just 15. His qualities and smile allowed his then-manager to secure a KTM bike and the backing of oil company Repsol, which from the very beginning wanted to associate its image with Marquez’s.

In his first race, on 13 April that year in Estoril, he finished 18th, 51.6 seconds behind winner Simone Corsi. All other riders who took part in that race, 34 in total, are now retired, although one of them, Takaaki Nakagami, competed this Sunday as a Honda wildcard in his role as test rider.

Marquez contested 13 grands prix in his first year in the world championship in 2008 and needed only six races to reach his first and only podium that year, which came in the form of third at the British Grand Prix.

He repeated that result at Jerez in 2009, earning his only podium of the season — and his first with the official Red Bull KTM Motorsport team, which already recognised in Marquez the rider he was destined to become.

It didn’t take long for him to achieve the results he was capable of. In 2010, his third year in the championship and again with Aki Ajo’s team, he started the season with third in Qatar. Marquez’s eagerness to win was so strong that he crashed on the warm-up lap before the start of the Spanish GP and could not take part in the race. In France, he repeated third place, his second of the year and fourth of his career, until finally standing on the top spot of the podium.

The first of 99 world championship victories

Marquez’s first world championship win in the 125cc class came at Mugello on 6 June 2010, where he shared the podium with Nico Terol and Pol Espargaro. Johann Zarco was also on the grid at that time.

From then on, the doors of success opened wide: that year he achieved 12 poles, 10 victories, and a total of 12 podiums in 17 starts, which earned him his first world title at the age of 17, and promotion to the Moto2 category.

In his first year in the intermediate class, Marquez’s impact was so powerful that sponsors fought to have their name on the Spaniard’s leathers. Even Repsol and bank CX almost came to blows to claim the largest portion of the fairing on his Suter bike.

Despite the great expectations for his debut, Marquez crashed 16 laps from the end in Qatar, then fell again in Jerez and Portugal. In Estoril, however, he picked up the bike as best he could and finished 21st.

Three zeros in three races set off some alarm bells, but Marquez silenced the murmurs by chaining together 11 podiums in the next 12 races, including seven wins in a stream that seemed to be taking him straight to the title.

However, his first serious injury came at the Malaysian GP, when a crash in free practice at Sepang caused an episode of diplopia in his left eye, with double and blurred vision, as well as dizziness.

Marquez, who had left Japan leading the world championship, ended up losing the Moto2 title to Stefan Bradl in the last two races of the year, which he could not take part in.

Honda secretly signs him a year in advance

The Spaniard’s disappointment was monumental: despite winning seven races, he was runner-up behind Bradl, who became champion with only four wins but 23 more points. Even without the title, Marquez’s performance caught the attention of the HRC giant, which, through then-general manager Livio Suppo, reached a secret agreement for the Spaniard to step up to MotoGP in 2013, despite the regulations at the time forbidding rookies from debuting with a factory team, forcing them instead to do so with a satellite structure.

The year of waiting before moving up to the premier class was a walk in the park for Marquez in Moto2, collecting nine victories, 14 podiums and seven poles in 17 grands prix to secure his second world crown at just 19 years old. By then (2012), Marquez already had 26 wins across the two classes.

Honda’s power and, above all, Marquez’s overwhelming popularity before even arriving in MotoGP led Dorna to accept a rule change so that the #93 could debut in the premier class with what was then considered the best team in the world: Repsol Honda.

Move up to MotoGP

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Repsol Media

In his first season, Marquez debuted with a podium in Qatar and scored his first MotoGP win at the Americas GP on 21 April, at just 20 years and 63 days, becoming the youngest rider ever to do so – a record that still stands today.

That year, Marquez shocked everyone, scoring six wins, 16 podiums and 334 points in 18 grands prix to become the youngest ever MotoGP champion at 20 years and 266 days – a record that also still stands.

The 2014 season was another walkover for the Cervera native: he won the first 10 races of the season consecutively, another record, and added three more wins in the last eight races, for a total of 13 victories and 362 points, earning him his second MotoGP crown.

The nightmare of 2015

Valentino Rossi, Yamaha Factory Racing, Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

The 2015 season was one Marquez would rather erase from his career. Set-up problems with the bike and a tyre that did not suit the RC213V left the Honda rider at the mercy of Yamaha’s formidable duo: Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

Marquez could only win five races that year and score 242 points, leaving him out of the title fight early. However, history will remember the infamous Sepang clash, when Rossi kicked Marquez’s bike and Lorenzo scored victory, denying Rossi his 10th title.

For Marquez, at just 22 years old, dealing with that whole situation left a mark on the rest of his career, and no matter how much he tried to mend the relationship, until now there has never been any rapprochement between arguably the two greatest riders in history.

The response was emphatic: Marquez won the 2016, 2017, and 2018 titles with an inferior bike, collecting ‘only’ five, six, and nine wins respectively, without ever again approaching the 362 points of 2014.

Marquez’s best year, however, was yet to come. In 2019, the Honda rider scored 12 wins, 18 podiums and 420 points to complete his best season yet. By then, he had already claimed eight world championships —and six in the premier class — at just 26 years old, with his entire sporting career still ahead of him.

The tragic Jerez accident in 2020

It seemed at the time that Marquez had his whole life ahead to collect titles, victories and break records. But then came the pandemic: the start of the season was delayed, the calendar shortened and many races concentrated at just a few tracks. The first weekend of the year was the Spanish GP at Jerez, 19 July.

Marquez started third on the grid, but he was not willing to let anyone else win that day. In just two laps he was already leading, but on lap five he went wide and dropped to 17th. From there, he launched a formidable comeback: by lap 10 he was already 10th; by lap 18 he was sixth, and on lap 21, just four laps from the end, he was in podium position, third, behind Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Vinales, who were running far ahead. He could have left it there, but Marquez did not want to lose that race and made a mistake at Turn 3, crashing into the run-off area, where the front wheel of his Honda struck his right arm and broke his humerus.

After emergency surgery on Tuesday, the rider flew back to Jerez on Friday intending to take part in the Andalusian GP over the weekend. After a debate between the rider, the doctors, his agent and the team, Marquez went out on track Saturday in FP3, completed 18 laps, and suffered a break to the plate that held his fractured humerus.

Fall into the abyss

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Over the years, Marquez admitted that he had rushed and made the wrong decision.

“The only thing I regret in my career is having gotten back on the bike after the 2020 operation,” he said later on.

The Honda rider missed the entire 2020 season, and in the next three years he continued to battle with the injury, contesting 41 races and adding three more wins to his tally, but having to go under the knife three more times. It was a four-year ordeal of pain, rehabilitation, a change of manager, habits, residence and above all, uncertainty.

“The hardest part was not knowing if I was ever going to be competitive again,” he recalled in the documentary All In.

In that same film, one of the most shocking scenes was recorded on a private plane, when Marquez, pointing to the four scars on his right arm, said: “I did this to win again, with you or without you,” referring to Honda, which was not giving him a bike to fight for victories.

The Honda exit

In 2023, Marquez realised he needed a Ducati to win again and, despite having one more year left on his Honda deal, until the end of 2024, he asked the Japanese manufacturer – to which he had delivered six MotoGP titles and 54 victories – to release him from his contract. Honda agreed.

Marquez’s destination was the satellite Gresini team, a small but ambitious and very family-oriented structure, where his brother Alex had already been competing for two years after also leaving Honda.

Marquez gave up his salary in order to ride a Ducati GP23 and, practically recovered, he began enjoying himself on the bike again. Top-line results weren’t immediate – he needed 12 races, until the Aragon GP, to achieve victory, his first ever in MotoGP on a bike other than Honda. But Ducati’s confidence in Marquez was such that even before he scored his first podium, in Jerez at round four, it already knew he was its man for the factory team in 2024.

Marquez arrived at the official Borgo Panigale garage in 2025 at 32 years old, with eight world titles, six in MotoGP, and 83 world championship victories, including 57 in the premier class.

Marc Marquez, Gresini Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Returning from hell

Never before had anyone “disappeared” from the elite level at 26 years old, missed an entire season, and then spent three more in and out of surgery before triumphing again. Yet Marquez believed he could do it, and Ducati followed him in his dream, giving him the best bike available today. The result was an explosion of victories – 11 in the first 16 races of the season, seven consecutive between Aragon and Hungary, and with the first championship match point in Japan, six races before the end of the year.

At Motegi, a circuit where he had already celebrated three titles, Marquez completed the greatest comeback in sports history, marking the return of a champion who fell into the abyss and rose from the depths to claim his ninth world championship and seventh title in MotoGP.