MotoGP legend Marc Marquez has withdrawn from the French Grand Prix weekend after his violent highside crash late in Saturday’s sprint race.
The Ducati factory star has been declared unfit after an X-ray revealed a fracture in his right foot.
Marquez will fly to Madrid this evening for surgery, and has already been ruled out of his home race at Barcelona next weekend.
The Spaniard was already 51 points behind championship leader Marco Bezzecchi, and this latest setback will leave him requiring little short of a miracle to defend his world championship title.
Marquez was running in seventh place when the accident occurred on the penultimate lap. He lost control of the bike on the way into Raccordement at the end of the lap, and was spat over the handlebars in a rare MotoGP highside.
While Marquez’s troublesome right shoulder appears to have escaped further damage in this accident, the rider revealed to DAZN after the race that he had existing plans for further surgery in that area following the Barcelona race.
“I already had an operation scheduled for after Catalonia, on my right shoulder,” he said. “That was one of the reasons I was taking it easy. I knew I could fall at any moment.”
Marc Marquez, Ducati Team
Photo by: Marc Fleury
That revelation flew in the face of his recent claims to be fully fit, and confirmed the rife speculation that shoulder issues had been hampering his riding in recent races.
“After Jerez, I realised something wasn’t right,” he added. “We went to see the doctors, and they found that everything was fine, but that the infamous broken screw in my lateral ligament was in a different position.
“It was a very strange sensation, because at home I felt fine, but when I came here it impeded my riding, because it was touching the radial nerve. That’s what causes me to make mistakes, be inconsistent and have unexpected crashes. That’s why I was so calm [unconcerned].
“The shoulder procedure is simply a matter of opening it up and removing that screw. It shouldn’t take long.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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