The six-time MotoGP world champion announced on Saturday at Mugello that he will sit out racing for the foreseeable future – possibly for the rest of 2022 – to have a fourth operation in America on the right arm he badly broke in 2020.
Marquez had confirmation of the surgery on Friday between practice sessions at Mugello and continued with the grand prix, the Honda rider qualifying 12th and finishing 10th in the race.
Speaking after an “emotional” potentially final outing in 2022, Marquez says he would have likely sat out the Italian GP had he been informed of his operation earlier.
“Yeah, it was a very demanding weekend, not only about physical side, that every weekend I suffer a lot this season,” Marquez said.
“But especially about mental side it was very difficult to keep the concentration.
“It’s true that I received the news on Friday, but if I received that news on Wednesday or Thursday I will not race here.
“But I received on Friday, I was here. Honda allowed me to choose what was best for me.
“I decided to continue the weekend because I have raced until now. [I said] ‘I will take a risk because you are riding 350km/h, but I will work for you and I worked a lot this weekend’.
“I worked for Honda to give my input for the future. It was a difficult race, I enjoyed six, seven laps in the beginning.
“I did a great start and I saw the front group and I was able to ride in more or less the same pace.
“But I had one warning and I gave up, because I saw I had arm pump and a lot of pain and a lack of power.
“I finished the race, I found my group, just I ride, I finished the race. Was emotional but it was good.”
Marquez also revealed that his daily life has been “affected a lot” due to the problems he has had with his right arm since he broke it back in July of 2020 and had only two more years of racing in him at most had he not decided to go for more surgery.
“My daily life is affected a lot,” he added.
“I was training a lot at home with motocross, with road bikes, with any kind of bikes I was training a lot.
“Now normal life is go home, rest for two, three days because I can’t do anything, just some legs, some cycling.
“And then I start to train again, physio, painkillers.
“I say to my doctors and to my people, riding like this I will do one more year, two more years – not more, because I am not enjoying it and I’m suffering a lot and I cannot support this on the mental side.
“But having the operation, I hope my life changes. The last two years were not easy.”
