Track Report by Alberto Puig [Repsol Honda Team - Team Manager]

What is the latest news on Marc Marquez?

The surgery went well, Dr Sanchez Sotelo was very happy and Marc is already now back in Spain. He will start his recovery slowly, following the instructions from the doctor. We are very happy that he is back home, and he can start thinking about the recovery of his right humerus. It’s good when you are able to return home promptly from hospital, limiting the time away from your house.

Is there an indication of what the recovery time will be?

The doctor said that Marc needs to take everything step by step, with periodic checks together with Dr Samuel Antuña in Spain. Both medical teams are working closely together, and this is very important. They will be evaluating the situation more or less every two to three weeks. The priority now is the healing of the bone and avoiding any major complications.

Stefan Bradl replaced him in Barcelona and will again be in Sachsenring and Assen.

It’s never easy! When you are a test rider like Stefan and suddenly you are racing, you have to change your mentality. You go from performing a certain type of work with a certain bike and training in a certain way to being a MotoGP rider again. As a rider you have to do everything at once, you have to give everything you have in just a few hours over three days, for this you need to readjust your mind. This is what Stefan was doing this weekend. Unfortunately, he crashed and has some pain from the fall, especially in the knee, but he was able to complete laps during the Monday Test and help Honda with the new things we had.

What’s the Test Team’s if Stefan stays in the Repsol Honda Team?

At this moment is difficult to understand what we can do because we need Stefan for the races.

The other Honda HRC riders also had a hard weekend.

Takaaki Nakagami’s crash was a big one. He was lucky in some ways. He went to the hospital and was under observation in the ICU for 24 hours. He has now already been moved and probably on Tuesday he can go home. We feel very sorry for Rins and Bagnaia who were involved in the accident.

Pol Espargaro has some problems in the race. He started very well and was fourth on the first lap but he was missing grip compared to the days before. This stopped him from performing well, it was really a pity. The balance is not good.

On the other hand, Alex Marquez did a good race, even after his big crash on Saturday, he recovered to finish tenth and get some good points.