“I said when I went to the doctors, ‘Let me know if we have a solution. If not, I will retire.'”
These are the words of Marc Márquez to ESPN in 2023, when he was a six-time MotoGP world champion, about the arm injury that nearly ended his career. His brother, who is on course to finish runner-up in the 2025 MotoGP championship, Alex Márquez, thought that his older sibling would retire during the two-year period he spent searching for a cure for his fractured, infected and malrotated humerus.
Now, 2,185 days, four complicated surgeries, two teams and one manufacturer later, Marc Márquez is a seven-time MotoGP world champion, having clinched this year’s crown at Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.
“I have a super strange feeling. Of course I am happy, but the first feeling was that I feel at peace with myself,” Márquez said on Sunday of the vindication of lifting the championship following such a lengthy recovery. “It was Marc against Marc for five years; it was Marc against injury, but especially on the mental side, it was difficult.”
This is a sporting comeback that has few obvious parallels. You could argue that Peyton Manning winning Super Bowl XL after undergoing three neck surgeries in 19 months to correct a herniated disk is on the same level — and, coincidentally enough, his brother didn’t think he’d come back from his injury either. There’s also Jack Eichel, who lifted the Stanley Cup less than two years after a groundbreaking artificial disk replacement surgery to rectify his own herniated disk. Neither is truly an apples-to-apples comparison, nor are they black and white.
Two elements make Márquez’s case so unique. One, on top of needing to heal from such a complex injury, the now-32-year-old Spaniard also had to contend with his once-formidable team, Honda, falling to the rear of the field during his recovery. And two, the lengths to which he went to return to winning ways.
How far was he willing to go? After the 2023 season, he left Honda, reportedly walking away from a €25 million-a-year contract, to join the independently operated Gresini Ducati team — foregoing his salary to make the deal work. One source close to Márquez told ESPN that the decision was based entirely on his desire to win again.
“That was the most difficult decision of my career,” Márquez said to members of the media on Monday. “It was like, take that decision or finish my career.
“I didn’t know that it was the correct decision, but it was the most ambitious decision, to try to answer to myself if I [could be] competitive with the best bike on the grid, that was Ducati. I moved to the Gresini team and said, ‘I just want the bike, I don’t want a salary’ … I just want to answer to myself if I can fight with the top guys.”
The answer was in the affirmative. He finished third in the 2024 championship, complete with four wins, on a year-old Ducati that was so far behind the new model that Márquez’s closest competitor on identical equipment (brother Alex) finished 219 points behind in the standings — nearly six full race weekends’ worth of points.
“That gave me the chance to be in the best team on the grid, that is the Ducati Lenovo team,” Marc Márquez said on Monday. “And when you arrive in the best team, with the best bike, with the best technology, it’s in your hands. So from winter time, I knew that was my best chance to try to fight for the championship.”
He did more than fight. If this were an in-ring bout, the towel would’ve been thrown in weeks — maybe months — ago.
With MotoGP’s calendar having grown considerably since 2005, measures like wins and points no longer carry the same meaning, but contrary to Márquez’s “#MoreThanNumbers” social media campaign celebrating his seventh championship, figures like win percentage and points percentage can help illustrate his statistical dominance. Through 17 of 22 rounds in 2025, he boasts the highest single-season win percentage (73.5%) of the modern era, and his points percentage (86%) is fifth highest of the past 24 years.
From a wins perspective, he owns the records to three of the five greatest seasons in modern history. From a points perspective, it’s two of five.
When Márquez won his first title in 2013, he did so as MotoGP’s youngest-ever champion at 20 years and 266 days. Now he has the distinction of also being the series’ oldest-ever world champion at 32 years and 223 days.
His seventh premier-class title puts him level with the sport’s greatest icon, Valentino Rossi, and one behind the most celebrated rider in its history, eight-time champion Giacomo Agostini. Naturally, Márquez’s renewed dominance raises the question of where he stands among MotoGP’s pantheon of legends.
“When you see your name between legends like Valentino Rossi, Giacomo Agostini, Angel Nieto, Mick Doohan … it’s something that is quite impressive and it’s an honor to equal one of the biggest, the most talented riders of the motorcycle world,” Márquez said. He wouldn’t be drawn on where, exactly, he fit among that list of champions, though. “I will never say where I want to put my name. I’m just doing my best.”
Agostini may be the most decorated rider in MotoGP history, Rossi may be its most iconic, but after emerging from a five-year nightmare with title No. 7, it must be said that Márquez is its greatest of all time.
