DAs feared, eight-time motorcycle world champion Marc Márquez broke his metacarpus at the MotoGP season opener in Portugal and will miss the Argentine Grand Prix next weekend. This was announced by the Honda factory team on Monday. After an initial examination at the medical center, the racing team suspected that the Spaniard had a fracture.
Márquez crashed in Portimao on Sunday, after a driving error he cleared local hero Miguel Oliveira and broke the first metacarpal bone on the thumb of his right hand. The 30-year-old had already been operated on in Madrid. During the procedure, the doctors repositioned the bone and fixed it with two screws.
Long break for Espargaro
The Spaniard received a penalty from race control for his driving error. Oliveira suffered no fractures according to the first examinations. Márquez has a long history of injuries, and his career has been marked by many serious falls. In 2020 he missed the entire season after suffering an upper arm injury in a crash at the season opener in Jerez. He had to undergo multiple operations, and even had a bone transplanted from the iliac crest into his upper arm.
The former series winner is already the third MotoGP rider to fail for the second World Championship station in Termas de Rio Hondo. Pol Espargaro is also missing after his terrible fall on Friday, the Spaniard suffered a jaw fracture, a broken vertebra and a contused lung. He will have to sit out a month and a half to two months.
On Saturday, Ducati factory pilot Enea Bastianini suffered a broken shoulder blade. The German Moto2 rider Lukas Tulovic also did not compete in the race in the Algarve due to a hand injury. He will also be absent in Argentina.
