Inside Marquez’s new approach to racing after surgery
by Rachit Thukral · AutosportMarc Marquez’s crew chief offers insights into how the Ducati rider has been adapting his riding to overcome his physical limitations after undergoing a seventh surgery on his right shoulder
Marc Marquez’s dominant victory in last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix was the clearest sign yet that he can still operate at the front in MotoGP.
Despite still not having fully recovered from the injury he sustained in Indonesia last October, Marquez was able to claim pole position and convert that into a double win at the Balaton Park Circuit.
It was an impressive comeback from the factory Ducati rider just one month after the seventh surgery on his battered right shoulder. While in any other season, Marquez would be near-impossible to beat at an anti-clockwise circuit, the odds were stacked against him this time around. The impact of the injury he sustained in Indonesia was so severe that he was even struggling in left-hand corners at the beginning of the season.
Even after his comeback win and showing he can be quick at anti-clockwise tracks, the picture isn’t all rosy for the nine-time world champion. Marquez still lacks muscle strength, leaving him with severe limitations for the upcoming races in Brno and Assen.
“It's more related to the force. So he is not 100% fit to use the strength for all the laps,” Marquez’s crew chief Marco Rigamonti told Autosport in Hungary.
“So in FP1 and FP2, he did 20 laps, but he pushed for only 4-6 laps. And maybe in one lap, [he] only [pushed] in some corners to understand the limit of the bike. So this is a limit also for the performance.
“For example, he said that in some corners at Balaton, you have to fight against the wheelie. And to fight against the wheelie, you have to pull the handlebar.
“But he said, 'I have no strength, no force.' And so maybe use legs more, but it's not a good way to fight against the wheelie. And so sometimes he says, ‘I wheelie a lot, but probably it's because I'm not riding in a good way’.
“But I think that maybe immediately after two-three weeks, he could be quite similar to last year.”
Post-Indonesia ordeal
The last eight months hadn’t been easy for Marquez. Just a week after he claimed his ninth world title and completed an epic comeback from his 2020 Jerez injuries, he was back in the operating theatre for another shoulder fracture.
He had been hoping to regain full fitness by the start of the European leg of the 2026 season, but when he continued to face the same physical limitations at Jerez, he decided to undergo yet another operation last month.
After missing the Catalan GP, he returned to action at Mugello, showing an immediate upturn in performance, before returning to winning ways in Hungary.
Through these highs and lows, Rigamonti had been on Marquez’s side all along. The Italian was one of the small group of people Marquez trusted with his plans about an additional operation. It was only after he broke his foot in the Le Mans sprint that the news about his surgery became public knowledge.
Rigamonti opened up Marquez’s struggles in the early part of the season and explained how he came to the conclusion that he needed another surgery.
“At the beginning of the year, he noticed that he was not able to be constant in terms of force,” he said.
“He was thinking that it was only related to the lack of training during the winter. But then after Qatar, because Qatar was cancelled, he said, 'OK, I have three weeks.'
“And when he came back to Jerez, he said, 'OK, I'm now quite close to 100% like last year.' In Jerez, instead, he realised that there was something wrong. Because he was prepared, but at the end, he started FP1 in good shape. And every session, he has a lack of force and a lack of strength.
“So after, he decided to make a visit to the doctor, and they understood the problem on the arm.”
First ray of hope in Mugello
There was an immediate difference in Marquez’s mood when he returned to action in the Italian Grand Prix towards the end of last month after missing the entire Catalan GP weekend.
Despite Mugello being one of the most physically demanding circuits on the calendar, Marquez was able to deliver an improved performance compared to the early part of the season, finally putting him on the right trajectory.
“We saw that on the left corners, he came back like last year. So he was able to make the difference in the left corners, and he also was able to make a good lap time,” Rigamonti revealed.
“The only thing is that he was thinking to be more prepared on the physical side. But the track was very demanding at that point, so he struggled a lot to be consistent, because sometimes he arrived with no force in one direction.
“So he was happy that he noticed that he was quite in good shape. He could ride in a good way. But he knows now that he needs some weeks to recover 100%.”
Uncertainty over future
That explains why Marquez isn’t describing his victory in Hungary as a full comeback just yet. Chiefly, there are still concerns within the Ducati camp about what his new ceiling would be in MotoGP.
Already in his title-winning 2025 campaign, Marquez wasn’t quite at the pre-2020 level, requiring more training and more management away from the track.
“It's difficult to know because also he says that after every injury, you don't know the new 100% and how it is compared to the last 100%,” Rigamonti said.
“So we don't know if after three-four months of complete training, complete recovery, he will be in the same condition as last year or not. This is on the physical side.
“Then we know that our competitors improve. So we don't know if with the same physical condition of last year, he is able to win 14 races in a row like last year because our competitors improve."
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