Honda team manager Alberto Puig is fervently hoping to have Marc Marquez ride at the upcoming MotoGP test at Misano to help guide development for 2023
Is Marc Marquez already close to returning to a MotoGP bike? The eight-time motorbike world champion has an important doctor’s appointment later this week, which should provide clarity on when a comeback will be possible following his fourth surgery on his right upper arm (just under twelve weeks ago)
Marquez’s employers Honda have high hopes that it will be as early as the official MotoGP test in Misano in a fortnight’ time. The two-day test will take place on 6 and 7 September, the Tuesday and Wednesday following the Misano race weekend.
Should Marquez not be able to ride the test, which is extremely important for the teams in preparation for the 2023 MotoGP season, then that would be “a problem” according to Alberto Puig. Currently, however, the Honda team manager is confident.
“The steps recommended by the doctors have been followed. A CT scan is due this week and the doctors have said that if the bone is fine, then everything is good,” Puig told ‘DAZN Spain’.
“Personally, I don’t think he will be ready for the race [at Misano],” Puig said, “but for the test it could work. And even if he can’t do 100 laps a day, that would be important. If he could do, say, four runs to say yes or no, that would already be very important for us.”
The next official MotoGP test following the one in Misano is not until November in Valencia. That would be too late for Honda to make any decisive changes to the development of the RC213V for the 2023 season, if necessary. For this reason, Puig fervently hopes that Honda’s star rider will be able to take part in the Misano test.
“The Misano test is traditionally very important to be able to build a prototype for the Valencia test. If Marc is not able to ride in Misano, then we would show up [in Valencia] as we are at the moment, namely blind,” Puig finds quite frank words for the current Honda misery.
In the current 2022 MotoGP manufacturers’ standings, Honda is a distant second. In the 2022 MotoGP Team Ranking, there are only three teams that have scored fewer points than the Honda factory team so far this season. And in the 2022 MotoGP riders’ standings, Marc Marquez is still the Honda rider with the most points after 13 races of the season, even though he has not even contested seven of those 13 races.
“Marc knows our bike very well. It’s not that the other [Honda riders] don’t understand it, but he is the one who knows the bike the best and who has won the most races on it. If he is missing, it makes our job even more difficult,” Puig confesses.
