Alex Marquez “remembers everything” from Catalunya MotoGP crash “we need to accept it”

Alex Marquez has been cleared to ride a MotoGP bike for the first time since his huge Catalunya accident during Friday practice for the Czech MotoGP at Brno.

The Gresini rider suffered collarbone and vertebra fractures a month ago when he was thrown off his Ducati after clipping the back of race leader Pedro Acosta, whose KTM suddenly slowed due to a technical issue.

Marquez, who had won the Sprint a day earlier, required surgery for the complex collarbone fractures and will have his fitness reviewed again after FP1. It’s a decision he agrees with.

“I also want to understand my condition after FP1,” Marquez said on Thursday. “But for me, it was quite important on the mental side to be here, to be part of this world again, to be with the team, in the paddock.

“So now, practice by practice, I need to understand my condition and decide what is the gain and the risk of continuing [the whole weekend].”

"I said, 'I want to see the crash' "

Rather than try and forget the incident, Marquez explained that an important part in his mental recovery was to watch the accident in hospital.

“I was quite clever from the first moment, that Sunday in the hospital, I said, ‘I want to see the crash’. And then I started to remember, I accepted it and said, ‘Okay, it's part of the job, it's part of this world’.”

That acceptance also extends to the technical issue on Acosta’s machine.

“It's something that we need to accept, that many times we forget. but it's something that can happen,” Marquez said. “I think many [people] were like ‘the bike can't stop’.

“A bike, on the mechanical side or also the electric side can have a problem at any moment and it's something that we forget many times. So it's part of [racing] and if you accept it and turn the page, I think it's better.”

The only action Marquez hopes will be taken is to smooth the runoff area that caused his Desmosedici to ‘jump’ after veering off track.

“I remember everything. When I touched Pedro, I was going to the right side because my front fork was already broken and my handlebar was a little bit [twisted] so I was not able to make power to that side.

“But then, the bike made like a jump. I was quite lucky… That jump can’t be there for the future, that is true. But already my bike was quite damaged by that point. So I think it was a crash that nobody can avoid.”

Of Marquez’s injuries, the collarbone was the most serious, although he also suffered aftereffects from the impact on his head.

“When you hear ‘broken vertebra’, it's shocking, but it was more like the muscle took out a small piece of the vertebra,” Marquez said. “So was no really a thing that worried the doctors.

“They were more worried about my collarbone that was broken in four pieces and it was not easy to make the operation. 

"But more I was suffering the first week especially from the impact on the head, I had dizziness a little bit and all that, but later on I started to improve a lot and then was everything perfect.”

Marquez, who took Ducati’s first grand prix victory of the season at Jerez, is now ninth in the world championship. He is expected to join the factory KTM team next season.