Marc Márquez hits the injury wall again. The nightmare of his recent years. After his comeback last year following six blank seasons due to the ordeal with his right arm, the seven-time MotoGP champion suffered a new blow this Saturday during the sprint of the French GP. As a result of a heavy crash in the penultimate corner and on the penultimate lap of the Le Mans circuit, when he was running seventh in a race won by Jorge Martín’s Aprilia, he broke the little toe on his right foot and will have to undergo surgery. This new physical setback has led him to decide to bring forward surgery on his right shoulder, which was damaged again at last year’s Indonesian GP. An appointment for surgery he had kept secret until now. The operation will take place this very Sunday, according to sources close to the rider.
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The rider warned his trusted medical team a couple of weeks ago that a screw was affecting the radial nerve of the joint, which is why he did not feel his arm at full capacity when riding. At first, he had doubted whether it was simply a mental block on track, since in the gym or training in motocross, with a more upright posture, he felt stronger than ever. But something did not add up in his poor start to the season, where he has been unable to perform, especially on Sundays, unable to get on the podium. He insisted it was not a technical drop from the Ducati, but he also did not want to give clues about his physical discomfort.
“I hadn’t told anyone,” he confessed regarding the operation, initially scheduled for after the Catalonia GP to be held next week in Montmeló. “I’m having more problems than usual this season. It was visible, but I tried to convince myself it wasn’t. After Jerez, I saw that something wasn’t working. And the doctors could observe that after the crash in Indonesia everything was perfect except the famous broken screw in the shoulder, which has shifted,” the Catalan detailed.
“I was fine at home, but when I came here something wasn’t working. I thought I had a mental block, but they saw that in the MotoGP riding position the screw touched the radial nerve. That made me fail, not be consistent, and explains some of the crashes I’ve had,” summarized the 33-year-old rider, visibly affected by the new physical setback.
The conclusion was that this displaced screw required a new operation in a few weeks. But the reigning world champion will not be able to participate in his home grand prix after this latest setback with his foot. Hence, he has decided to bring forward the intervention to remove the screw. And also operate on the fractured toe. “This was one of the reasons I was calm this weekend. I knew a crash could come at any moment. And it ended in a fracture of the fifth metatarsal of the right foot, unfortunately,” Márquez lamented to DAZN microphones.
AN ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE CRASH for @marcmarquez93 💥
Thankfully he’s up on his feet #FrenchGP 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/gyPcleGMFZ
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) May 9, 2026
This will be the eighth operation on a right arm that was first shattered in July 2020 at the Spanish GP. It was precisely in Jerez, at the end of April, when he decided to visit the doctors and seek some explanation for his lack of fluidity on the Desmosedici GP, a machine he has dominated the championship with for the last six years.
The crash in Le Mans puts his title defense on hold and reveals the main reason for his poor start to the season with Ducati, fifth in the standings 51 points behind leader Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia). For now, the exact recovery times for the defending champion and key figure of the Ducati project are unknown, although he estimated that if everything goes according to plan his return should not be delayed too long.
“Now we will do all the interventions at once, and the idea is to recover well and from there continue with the dynamic of building for the future, because competing like this is not right. I can go fast, yes. I know how to do it, of course, but I can’t be consistent,” assessed the nine-time world champion across all categories.
Márquez is just one win away from his 100th victory in the championship, a milestone only Giacomo Agostini and Valentino Rossi have achieved in the past, but this blow again raises the specter of a possible retirement if the arm does not support him again in his umpteenth recovery after a crash. Until now, he has always gotten up, but the years weigh.
