The bond between Marc Marquez and Mick Doohan was forged out of two seemingly opposing forces: success and pain. Perhaps for that very reason, Marquez turned to the Australian’s advice when he found himself at his lowest, when the injury to his right arm – one that required four surgeries – brought him to the brink of retirement.
Until that crash at Jerez in 2020, Marquez had been on a meteoric trajectory: both in that race, where he stormed back from last to second, and in his career overall, with six titles in seven years. The fall from such heights was abrupt and brutal, and for Marquez, nearly incomprehensible.
It was precisely because of this that he sought answers from someone who had endured something similar and had found a way out. Few voices could carry more weight in that regard than Doohan’s. More than 30 years earlier, he had faced a comparable ordeal – and emerged from it every bit as strong as Marquez has today.
“Marc and I spoke several times during that recovery period. There aren’t many people in the world you can have those kinds of conversations with, because not many of us have gone through that sort of situation. That’s what surely helped him,” Doohan recalled over the phone with Motorsport.com.
In 1992, as Honda’s spearhead, the Gold Coast rider was leading the 500cc world championship after winning five of the first seven races and finishing second in the other two. That streak ended abruptly in Assen, where a crash nearly forced doctors to amputate his left leg. From that fall in the Netherlands until he finally celebrated the first of five consecutive world titles (1994–1998), his life was defined by pain and sacrifice – two concepts Marquez knows all too well.
“There are many similarities with my case, because I was also dominating before I crashed at Assen. It also took me several years to recover. The drive that has pushed Marc to give everything is the desire to keep racing, the same as mine. Marc had unfinished business, and nothing motivates more than that to empty yourself completely,” added the five-time world champion, now focused on supporting his son Jack, who raced for Alpine in Formula 1 before moving back to a reserve driver role mid-season.
Race winner Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team, Mick Doohan
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
In Doohan’s words, there are echoes of both resignation and strength. Resignation, because pain was unavoidable; strength, because from that trauma came the fuel that powered his comeback. What for most would have been the end became, for Marquez and Doohan alike, a chance to rewrite history.
“Mentally, what Marc has achieved shows just how strong he is. So many injuries and so many operations take you to the deepest part of yourself, as an individual. All the effort behind what he has done explains why he’s such a humble guy,” the former Honda star underlined.
The parallels between them – separated by three decades yet bound by the same wound – tell a story of survival that transcends motorcycling. Doohan and Marquez share the fate of riders who once had everything, lost it in an instant, and somehow found the strength to reinvent themselves without betraying the essence that made them legends.
“This title will be especially rewarding for Marc, above all because he came close to retiring. The time he spent injured felt endless and incredibly hard. But I am sure that now, looking back, he sees it as a period that was worth enduring,” Doohan concluded.
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Japanese GP – Sunday, in photos
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Japanese GP – Sunday, in photos
Japanese GP – Sunday, in photos
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Japanese GP – Sunday, in photos
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Japanese GP – Sunday, in photos
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Japanese GP – Sunday, in photos
Japanese GP – Sunday, in photos
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