Marco Bezzecchi
Marc Marquez is one of the most successful riders in MotoGP history, but his career in the premier class has more recently been defined by injury as much as his seven titles.
Ducati helped Marquez to return to the top of the MotoGP championship in 2025 during his first season for the Borgo Panigale brand’s factory team. The 32-year-old had not won a title since 2019 prior to his triumph in 2025, when he gave everyone a reminder of his brilliance.
Cervera native Marquez was simply in another league to the rest of the MotoGP grid during the 2025 campaign, as he scored 11 Grand Prix and 14 Sprint Race wins from the 18 rounds he entered. It capped his road back to the top after a career-threatening arm injury in 2020.
Marquez won the 2025 MotoGP title with five rounds to spare, as well, after leaving Motegi boasting a 201-point advantage over his brother, Gresini ace Alex Marquez, in second place. Alex cut Marc’s lead to 78 points after the latter missed the final four rounds through injury.
Can Alex Marquez fight Marc Marquez for the 2026 MotoGP title?
Marc Marquez accepts he must be ‘held back’ after injuries as pain changes his character
Marquez now admits that he was “a broken man” after he required an operation on his right shoulder blade in October. The Spaniard sustained a coracoid fracture and ligament damage after Aprilia rider Marco Bezzecchi took him out on Lap 1 of the 2025 Indonesian Grand Prix.
READ MORE: Marc Marquez’s first MotoGP title with Ducati was defined by five moments
The injury also made Marquez reflect on the four operations he ultimately underwent on his right arm after a highside during the 2020 Spanish Grand Prix. Marquez notes that his family made him realise that he had to be held back after that injury, as pain changes his character.
Marquez told La Sexta’s The Objective: “There’s three periods in one injury. There’s the first period, a broken man who doesn’t want to know anything about anyone. In fact, I had just won the championship and I spent three or four weeks locked up at home doing nothing.
“No press, nothing. I didn’t want to. I was broken and in pain. Pain, above all. Pain changes your character. When I had my arm injury, I took it out on my family, and they’ve told me so.
“Now they say, ‘We were breathing a sigh of relief’. But I took it out on them. You take out your bad temper on your own people, on those you trust. You won’t take it out on someone you meet on the first day.
“And if the injury is a period of pain, you don’t want to know anything about anyone. But you’re already there, but you’re not. That’s where we talked before about tolerating the pain. That’s where they hold me back, and I let them hold me back.
“Then there’s the last phase, which is patience. It means not wanting more than what you have to do at that moment.”
Marc Marquez’s 2025 title put his MotoGP career back on track after his 2020 injury
Marquez’s career took a massive turn after the injury he sustained in the 2020 Spanish GP at Jerez. The Spaniard went from fighting for the title in each of his first seven years in MotoGP and winning it six times to fighting to earn a podium, as Honda lost their way in his absence.
READ MORE: Luigi Dall’Igna’s Ducati rider signings ranked from Marc Marquez to Jack Miller
Pol Espargaro knew about Marc Marquez long before some of his arch rivals did…
It took until 2023 for Marquez to realise that he had to leave Honda, as he sought to get on a Ducati to prove to himself above all else that he could still fight at the front of the grid. He took just four races to secure his first rostrum for Gresini and 12 rounds to win a Grand Prix.
Joining the factory Ducati team in 2025 also put Marquez’s career back on the same path he left after his arm injury in 2020. But the joy of winning his seventh title to date in Japan only lasted one week due to the shoulder injury he then sustained on Lap 1 of the Indonesian GP.
Ducati saw how much they needed Marquez during his absence, as Alex Marquez of Gresini secured the only win aboard a Desmosedici while his brother was ruled out of action. Marc Marquez has only now returned to riding a Ducati superbike ahead of testing this February.
Receive racing news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
