Marc Márquez has been the protagonist of the MotoGP world championship since on lap 4 of the last Spanish Grand Prix he left the track. Then began a blazing comeback that ended in a fall and serious injury . During the week, it was the operation first and then his intention to run in Jerez that have kept him in the limelight.
But in the shadow of Márquez there is a second protagonist who has done nothing but add fuel to the fire, Alberto Puig. Not only were his images encouraging Marquez from the wall in the heat of the comeback controversial, but after the operation he said that ” whoever wins the championship should not feel completely satisfied since the number one driver has not been present.”
Márquez was not the rider with the most points per race neither in 2010 in 125 cc nor in 2013 in MotoGP
Throughout the history of motorcycling, it has been common for injuries to have disrupted the evolution of a world championship. He is part of the races and, in principle, it seems as absurd to try to reduce the merit of the champion in 2020 as to dismiss Marc Márquez so soon , that although he cannot return until the central European triplet, he would keep his options firm.
If we review other cases in which injuries have decided a World Cup, we find that Márquez should be unsatisfied, always according to the criteria of Alberto Puig , of two of his World Cups. The first, the 125 cc that he achieved in 2010 and the second that of MotoGP that he achieved in his debut season, 2013.
That season 2010 the 125 cc title was played by Márquez and Nico Terol . The Valencian was the favorite because he seems infallible. He did not get off the podium and occasionally managed a victory, but he was injured before Saschering and could not be in Germany. In the end Márquez was champion by 14 points, just what Terol lost without that possible podium at the Saschenring.
If we exclude Montmeló’s race, in which he fell and was injured, and the Saschenring race, in which he did not run, Terol was on the podium in 14 of the remaining 15 races. He finished the world championship with an average of 18.5 points per race, while Márquez did so with 18.2. In other words, without Terol’s loss at the Saschenring, possibly the eight-time champion would be seven-time champion .
And even hexacampeón, if we remember what happened in the 2013 MotoGP season. Márquez was a very advanced debutant who got into the battle for the title at first, but still still seemed a step behind Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa . The two veterans were called to stake the title, but injuries changed everything.
Lorenzo made his famous slam dunk in Assen running the day after the operation , but in the following race he fell again and became more annoyed. Pedrosa also fell that day and was injured. It was Saschenring again, and both caused casualties. A little later, they appeared in Laguna Seca still very touched. Marquez won the World Cup by four points.
The difference is that Lorenzo finished with an average of 19.4 points per race, while Márquez made 18.5 . And that the Balearic, in addition to missing Saschenring, ran very touched in Assen and Laguna Seca. In fact, what happened to Lorenzo in 2013 should perhaps teach Márquez in 2020.
Lorenzo trained to run, to score points and make the machado. And at first it seemed that he did it, but he ended up losing the World Cup for it. Instead of missing one race and getting to the next one well, he forced and ended up missing one and running hard on two others . That’s where the points that gave Márquez the title went.
Crivillé, Rainey and Schwantz also won world championships due to injuries from others
But not only Márquez has won unsatisfied titles. As we say, the history of motorcycling is plagued. You could start with the first Spanish champion of the queen category, Álex Crivillé, who reigned in 1999 in the 500 cc with Mick Doohan absent after his brutal fall in Jerez, precisely in the same curve in which Márquez went to ground.
He also missed many Doohan races in 1992. A total of four, and still stayed four points behind Wayne Rainey in the World Cup overall. A season later, in 1993, it was Yamaha’s who suffered his terrible accident in Misano and that left the World Cup served for Kevin Schwantz .
More recently we also found cases of injured champions. Valentino Rossi broke his tibia and fibula in 2010, leaving the way open for Jorge Lorenzo to win his first title with pleasure. The Mallorcan also benefited from the injury of Casey Stoner, current champion, in 2012 to get the second MotoGP world championship.
We had the last case without going any further last season. No one knows how far Augusto Fernández’s candidacy for the Moto2 title would have gone had he been able to count on the results of Argentina and Austin, races he lost due to injury, and would not have had to race against. In the end the champion was Álex Márquez, and that achievement was worth for Puig to sign him for HRC .