Neil Hodgson recalls the exact moment he ‘genuinely’ thought Marc Marquez would retire from MotoGP

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Marc Marquez is on the cusp of sealing one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history as he looks to seal his seventh MotoGP title at the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend.

The Spaniard has had to claw his way back to the top through sheer determination after suffering from an injury-ridden spell during the final years of his highly successful partnership with the factory Honda team.

After countless surgeries to repair the damage sustained in a number of violent crashes, Marquez sought a fresh start in the premier class when he made the decision to depart from the Japanese constructor for Ducati ahead of the 2024 MotoGP season.

Marquez’s motive behind the Ducati move was to see if he still had what it takes to be competitive in the premier class, eyeing a potential seventh world title to add to the six he claimed in his first seven seasons of MotoGP.

READ MORE: How many points Marc Marquez needs to win the 2025 MotoGP title at the Japanese Grand Prix

Neil Hodgson thought Marc Marquez would retire from MotoGP after the 2023 German Grand Prix

The lowest ebb of Marquez’s premier class career came in the 2023 season, after he had undergone multiple surgeries on his right shoulder to repair the damage done from a 2020 crash at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Spaniard crashed five times over the course of the 2023 German Grand Prix weekend, with his final off in the warm-up before Sunday’s race causing him to withdraw from the event.

Speaking on TNT Sports’ coverage of the Japanese Grand Prix, where Marquez can clinch the 2025 title, Neil Hodgson pinpointed the race at the Sachsenring as the moment he thought he would never see the #93 atop a bike again.

“I genuinely thought he was done,” Hodgson told his co-commentators. “But I also thought it was done with Honda, because he had another year in his contract, and I’m like, he’s done.

“He will retire. He will not continue because, like he’s always said, ‘I’m not here to make up the numbers,’ as we know he wasn’t.

“I didn’t know that it would be able to get out of that Honda contract. I didn’t think that was possible.”

READ MORE: Fabio Di Giannantonio in awe of the most ‘incredible’ aspect of Marc Marquez’s 2025 season

Neil Hodgson notes that the only person who can beat Marc Marquez is his own riding style

At the height of his career in 2015, Neil Hodgson called Marquez the most aggressive rider he had ever seen in the premier class.

The fact of the matter was that Marquez’s sheer dominance was down to his ability to push the bike to a limit that other riders were not comfortable in doing. During FP1 at Motegi, Hodgson pointed towards this as his biggest weakness.

When prompted on Marquez’s 2025 feat as an incredible comeback, Hodgson replied, “It’s just absolutely incredible. If you think, in 2019, when he dominated that year, he was around 26 years old at the time.

“We thought he was going to literally break every record possible. We also said there’s only one person who can beat Marc Marquez, and that’s Marc Marquez, by the way he rode.

“He took so many risks where he crashed a lot, but that’s how he got the job done, and eventually he caught up on him in 2020 with that horrible crash in Jerez. Then that was the start of 5 really tough years.”

It’s a sentiment that is shared by a lot of key members of the MotoGP paddock. The Spaniard’s former boss at Gresini also noted Marquez’s biggest “weak point” is himself, citing his former ways of pushing the two wheels that he was on top of too far over the limit.