Marquez sets record: 102 points recovered in 7 GPs, never anyone like him

The story is already written

Regardless of how this 2026 season will end, Marc Marquez has already written a page – yet another, in his case – of MotoGP history. In fact, no one in the history of the World Championship had ever recovered a 102-point deficit from first place in the standings. That was the gap of the Spanish Ducati rider after the Italian GP at Mugello, at the end of May, when the reigning champion returned to the track after the Le Mans injury and the subsequent double operation on his right shoulder and foot. Seven GPs later, ironically right at the end of the other Italian race of the season, the one at Misano, the red #93 returned to the top of the World Championship by catching Jorge Martin at 274 points. However, if the season ended today, Marquez would be champion due to the higher number of wins; Bezzecchi, who had left Mugello as the World Championship leader, has now sunk to -33 behind Marquez.

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The (few) comparable precedents

In this particular ranking of comebacks Marquez has surpassed his teammate Francesco Bagnaia, who in 2022 – the last year without Sprint races – recovered 92 points deficit to Fabio Quartararo to win his first MotoGP title in his career. Going back in time, one cannot forget the epic comeback – but then ended badly – of Valentino Rossi in 2006, exactly 20 years ago. The Doctor after retiring at Laguna Seca found himself at -51 points from Nicky Hayden with six GPs still to go and a maximum of 150 points at stake; Rossi came back to reach +8 over the American before the last GP in Valencia but then wasted everything in the final race, crashing after a few laps and paving the way for the epic victory of the Kentucky Kid.

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In the Sprint era instead, comebacks like Marquez’s have never been seen: in 2023 Jorge Martin was at -62 points from Francesco Bagnaia after the Austrian GP. The Spaniard, then with the Pramac team, in just four and a half rounds managed to close the gap and even temporarily jump to first place in the standings after the Indonesia Sprint, but the following day he crashed and Bagnaia overtook him again. The title was decided in Valencia, in the last Grand Prix, but it was the Chivasso rider who prevailed.

In 2024 the battle between the two [Martin and Bagnaia] was characterized by continuous overtakes and counter-overtakes in the standings during the season, while last year Marquez managed to pull away already after a few GPs without looking back. This time instead the phenomenon from Cervera had to race ‘at a handicap’ in the first part of the season but the verdict, for now, is the same: the strongest is still him.

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