With his second-place finish at the Japanese Grand Prix, Marc Márquez clinched the 2025 MotoGP Riders’ Championship. The title is Márquez’s seventh MotoGP Riders’ Championship, and his ninth world title across all classes.
It also completes one of sport’s greatest comeback stories.
After securing his sixth MotoGP title in 2019, Márquez endured a horrific string of injuries that put his racing future in doubt, and left the Spanish rider living what he described as a “nightmare,” and wondering if he would be “ready to win” again.
At the season-opening race in 2020, Márquez crashed heavily in the closing laps at Circuito de Jerez. The crash broke his right humerus, requiring surgery on the Monday after the race.
Márquez tried to stage a comeback just a week later at the Andalusian Grand Prix and was cleared to race by doctors, but ultimately withdrew from the weekend. His right arm would require a second surgery after it broke again, reportedly when Márquez was opening a door at his home.
That second operation ruled him out for the rest of the season, and a third surgery was required on his arm later in 2020 as an infection had set in after the second surgery, delaying the healing process.
His injuries were only beginning.
Márquez returned to racing in 2021, missing the first two races of the schedule as he continued his rehabilitation. He secured three wins that season, but when he was eliminated from title contention ahead of the final two races of the season, he sat out from those races to focus on preparing for the 2022 campaign.
Over his 14 races in 2021, Márquez crashed 22 times. A motocross crash also saw him deal with a severe concussion.
Márquez returned to MotoGP for the 2022 season, but after finishing fifth in the season opener, he crashed three times in practice ahead of the Indonesian Grand Prix alone. A fourth crash, in a warm-up session ahead of the race itself, saw him rushed to the hospital. Subsequent testing revealed he was suffering from double vision, which held him out of the third races of the season.
He was then sidelined further because his right arm needed a fourth surgery, as the humerus had rotated approximately 30 degrees inside his previously injured right arm. The surgery was conducted at the Mayo Clinic under the direction of Dr. Sanchez Sotelo, the Chair of the Division of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery.
“Today we had the opportunity to operate on the right humerus of Mr. Marc Márquez. The procedure was completed in approximately three hours. Despite the complexity of the procedure, the final outcome was satisfactory. Surgery consisted in removing the proximal two screws of the posterior plate previously placed by Dr. Samuel Antuña on December of 2020, followed by a rotational humeral osteotomy,” said Dr. Sotelo.
“Such procedure involves creating a transverse cut of the humeral bone to rotate the humerus along its long axis. The amount of rotation performed today was approximately 30 degrees of external rotation. The humerus was stabilized in the new position using an anterior plate with multiple screws. Surgery was completed uneventfully. We would like to wish Mr. Márquez a swift recovery and a successful return to his professional career.”
Márquez returned to the track at the Aragon Grand Prix following the summer break and secured four points finishes, including a podium, over the final six races of the season. Despite missing 8 of 20 races, he finished 13th in the standings and led all Honda riders.
The following season saw a setback of a different kind, as Márquez’s relationship with Honda reached a breaking point. A crash in the main race at the season-opening event in Portugal knocked him out of the following three races, and he was knocked out of both the French Grand Prix and the Italian Grand Prix.
Then came the German Grand Prix, a race Márquez had won so many times before. But a series of crashes that weekend left him battered and bruised, along with rib fractures and a fractured ankle.
He was also growing frustrated with his Honda machinery, and by the time the season ended, that relationship had as well. Despite returning to the grid and scoring a surprising podium at the Japanese Grand Prix, the two sides mutually terminated their contract, with Márquez joining Gresini Racing MotoGP Team for the 2024 campaign.
His one season with Ducati’s satellite team was a resounding success, his best campaign since his title season in 2019. Márquez scored three wins and 20 total podiums en route to a third-place finish in the Riders’ Championship.
That put him in a position to move to the senior team, Ducati Lenovo, for this season, a year that saw Márquez return to the top of the MotoGP world. He took four out of the first five pole positions, won the first six sprint races, and secured three grand prix wins over the early stretch to lead the Riders’ Championship for the first time since his 2019 title campaign.
He then put together a stretch of seven “double victories,” taking both the sprint race and the grand prix in Aragon, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary. That stretch brought hopes of his ninth-overall title to life, and he was in position to clinch that title this weekend in Japan.
Second-place finishes in both the sprint race and the grand prix did just that.
MotoGP summarized his comeback — and what he overcame to return to a championship — on social media:
Absolutely staggering numbers.
After securing the title, Márquez noted that he was at “peace” with his journey.
“The first thing that comes out of me is that I am at peace with myself. There are many people who have helped me to get out of here, it’s just impossible,” said Márquez with DAZN.
“You make the decisions with what you feel, but I don’t want to remember. I want to live in the moment, I’m at peace, it’s a moment of peace and it’s the most important thing. I don’t want to say names of gratitude because it wouldn’t end, but they know who they are.
”The most complicated thing is… Human beings have a very good capacity to forget about the bad and think about the good, at least the optimists.
“I always saw a light at the end of the tunnel, they have helped me to see more of the light. I have followed it and I have answered my questions thinking about myself, being selfish because my people asked me to,” continued the nine-time champion.
“I entered a loop in the Jerez fall, I made it worse by racing early, a decision that is my fault, I can advise you. That’s why I say that it was Marc against Marc and now I’m at peace.”
His peers praised the comeback effort.
“He’s had one hell of a rollercoaster along the way. He’s had a really challenging four years or more in between, so to see him back on top is awesome. He deserves it without a doubt. He’s been by far the standout rider this season. So congrats to him, congrats to his team,” said Brad Binder.
“It’s very difficult when you have this kind of injuries to come back like this. So I am happy for him. He deserves this title,” said Raul Fernandez. “He made an amazing year. I am happy because at the end, when I was younger, I think 80% of the grid, we saw when he jumped to MotoGP and he won like in the past. It’s true that we are rivals, but anyway, he deserves it and I am very happy for him.”
“Like I said many times, I think it’s the greatest comeback in the history of the sport. At the end, even I was emotional seeing the video that the guys made for him, so I cannot imagine for him,” said Pedro Acosta. “Congratulations to him and also the people around him. Because sometimes the people around suffer even more than the ones who have the injury. Congrats for them, for Ducati, for all the group around Marc because they deserve it.”
Márquez is at peace with his journey, one that saw him deliver a comeback for the ages.
And one that will never be forgotten.
