He was already a legend, and now he’s in the pantheon of all-time great athletes: Marc Márquez’s comeback is nothing short of epic.
From 2020 to 2023, the 2025 MotoGP World Champion lived a nightmare. It all started in Jerez, during the season opener marked by COVID, when the Spaniard, after an incredible comeback in the race, crashed in turn 3 and fractured his right humerus.
What seemed like a manageable injury turned into a long ordeal: four surgeries, a broken plate, a bone infection, and years of rehabilitation. In 2021, he even won three races, but a training crash caused diplopia—the same “double vision” that had already troubled him in 2011.
The turning point came in 2022 with the fourth and decisive arm surgery in the United States, where doctors had to break it again and rotate it 30 degrees to restore full functionality. Márquez returned to the track in Aragón and ended the season with a podium in Australia, marking the start of his rise. Yet in 2023, injuries continued, including a hand fracture and repeated crashes, culminating in the disastrous Sachsenring weekend. This led to a split with Honda, the team that had supported him since his MotoGP debut.
In an emotional press conference in Indonesia, Márquez announced his departure from the Japanese team to join Gresini, giving up millions of euros just to ride a Ducati. The move paid off: in 2024, he secured three wins and third place in the championship, behind only Bagnaia and Martín. The internal Ducati battle for 2025 shifted the balance: with Martín moving to Aprilia, Márquez was promoted to the factory team alongside Bagnaia.
The rest is history: in 2025, 2,184 days after the Jerez crash, #93 returned to the top of the world, claiming his seventh MotoGP title in a simply dominant season. Three teams, two manufacturers, years of suffering and surgeries, but one certainty: Marc Márquez has delivered the greatest comeback not only in motorcycle racing but arguably in modern sports history.
Photo: Ducati Corse
