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Sofa racers around the world have joined the popular new motorcycle sport, second-guessing the GOAT-in-waiting.
I'm talking about the reactions to the Marc Márquez drama that played out in the first two weekends of the delayed MotoGP season. When I posted my MotoGP season preview article three weeks ago, I noted that the abbreviated and condensed schedule introduced a lot of new variables, including the risk that an injury could end someone's title hopes because there would be no time between races for recovery and fewer races to make up points. Days later, an injury started that process and has put Márquez in an impossible hole for 2020.
And what a process it has been. In case you're behind, here's the synopsis. In the opening race at Jerez, Márquez was leading and pulled off one of his patented saves of what would have been a crash for any other rider in the world, but the trip through the gravel put him at the back of the pack. Then began a thrilling run through the field, and he had worked his way up to third place when he missed his mark by a few inches, highsided and broke his arm.
He had surgery on Tuesday, with a titanium plate placed on the broken bone, and returned to Jerez and passed the fitness test to race the second round. He skipped the Friday sessions and rode in the Saturday morning practice session, putting in competitive times. But in the afternoon session, the arm was swollen and he was losing strength, so he pulled in. He tried one lap in the qualifying session, but the situation was the same, so he withdrew from the race. The photo below, posted on the MotoGP Instagram account, showed how swollen the arm was after he attempted to ride.
At that point, Márquez and the Repsol Honda team were expecting to race this weekend in the Czech Republic round. Instead, Márquez had to go back for a second operation this week.
"An accumulation of stress in the operated area has caused the plate to suffer some damage," said Dr. Xavier Mir, so the plate was replaced. What's not totally clear is whether that stress is from Márquez's attempt to race or from the workouts he was doing to try to get back into shape. The video below, posted on his Instagram account before the second surgery, shows how hard he was working out to get the broken arm back in shape.
With the 2020 title out of reach, it now makes more sense for Márquez to delay his comeback until he is fully fit and thus reduce the risks of even more damage in another crash. He signed a four-year contract with Honda Racing this year, so HRC has made a long-term investment and doesn't want to risk future championships. Márquez himself may feel the same way, at this point. Already there have been reports in Spain that he is planning to skip not just the Czech round this weekend, but also the following two races in Austria.
Of course now that it didn't work out, sofa racers around the world are questioning his rush to return.
Why did Márquez try to race with a broken arm?
If you or I had a broken arm, we wouldn't even consider wrestling nearly 300 horsepower around a track just a few days later in the midst of a bloodthirsty pack of similiarly hyper-competitive types. But that's you and me. The first thing you have to understand is that no athlete becomes the best in the world — and let's be honest, right now Marc Márquez is the best motorcycle road racer in the world — by being a reasonable individual. Whether you're a star soccer player in the World Cup, a gold medal Olympic skiier or a top MotoGP racer, you don't get to the elite world-championship level by being a well rounded individual. You get there by having the extremely rare combination of unusual natural talent, some lucky breaks, an obsessive focus and an extreme level of competitiveness that pushes you to work harder and suffer more pain than normal humans in exchange for the fleeting joy of winning.
Márquez said that after his injury he initially never imagined trying to race the following weekend, but after the operation, he thought it might be possible. So he had to go back to Jerez and try to salvage some points to keep his title hopes alive. Repsol Honda team manager Alberto Puig said as much after the first race.
"Marc is very strong," Puig said. "He wanted to try, and we wanted to give him the opportunity to do it, we have supported him at all times. I think we have made the right decision at all times. A champion cannot stay at home if he thinks he has the option or a slight chance. Now he has a lot of inflammation, but it will pass. There are many races ahead and the goal is to arrive in Brno in the best way."
Even though he pulled out of race two, Márquez said he felt better for trying. "Tonight I will sleep in a good way because I tried and it wasn’t possible," he said.
Of course now we know that the plan Puig articulated, "to arrive in Brno in the best way," is also out. That leads to the second area of rampant speculation on social media. Could Márquez still have won the title after getting no points in the first race? What about after missing the first two?
Points and possibilities
At the time Márquez showed up injured for the second Jerez race, the MotoGP schedule was planned to be 13 races in Europe and possibly three others in Thailand, Malaysia and Argentina (the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas in Texas was already canceled). Since then, the schedule has been revised one more time, officially eliminating the overseas races and adding a 14th round in Europe.
With Petronas Yamaha SRT team rider Fabio Quartararo winning the two races in Jerez and gaining the maxiumum 50 points, if Márquez had been able to come back in reasonably good fitness at Brno in the Czech Republic then he would have had a difficult but not impossible route to the championship. To put an unlikely and oversimplified spin on it, if Márquez won the next 10 races and Quartararo finished second in all of them, they would be tied on points with one race to run (when it looked like a 13-race season) and Márquez ahead on the tie-breaker. Of course nothing is ever that neat, but it does show that coming back from a 50-point deficit would be possible, even in a shorter season.
All that was before Márquez had to go in for a second surgery and will miss more races, however. Now, Quartararo, after two wins (his first two in MotoGP after coming close but being thwarted by Márquez last year) that he made look fairly easy, is in a much stronger position. That said, I want to make a third point.
Don't hand Quarararo the title just yet
Quartararo is clearly the biggest beneficiary of Márquez's injury (not to mention that Suzuki factory rider Alex Rins was also injured in the first race, and though he was a long-shot as a title contender, he's a longer shot now). Quartararo, who is already signed to replace Valentino Rossi on the factory team in 2021, was one of the few who could match Márquez's pace last year and it was only a matter of time before he made the breakthrough and got his first win. As it turns out, he got his first two wins at Jerez in classic Jorge Lorenzo fashion, getting out front and methodically and comfortably stamping out identical laps at a pace just a little faster than anyone else can muster.
Based on how comfortable he looked while maintaining a five-second lead, some of the sofa racers are already saying Quartararo has the title in the bag. Two things I'd say about that. One, we've only seen two races, both at a track that suits the Yamahas. Second, a lot of people were ready to concede Álvaro Bautista the Superbike World Championship after his first two races last year, too. It didn't work out that way. In fact, remember how I said above it would have been possible for Márquez to make up a 50-point deficit? At one point last year, Bautista had a 53-point lead over Jonathan Rea in World Superbike and Rea wrapped up the title one round early. That's despite the fact that some declared Bautista unbeatable after he won two races at Phillip Island by 14 and 12 seconds to open the season. Two wins at one track by Quartararo doesn't make him a sure thing any more than it made Bautista a sure bet.
Monster Energy Yamaha factory rider Maverick Viñales is right behind Quartararo, with two second-place finishes. And although Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso is in a simmering contract fued with his team and was not feeling comfortable at Jerez, that could change dramatically when the series moves to its back-to-back races at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, where the Desmosedici is strong and Dovizioso has notched some of his most impressive and memorable victories.
Nothing about 2020 has gone as expected. At this point, the only thing that's reasonable to expect is the unexpected.
