Marc Marquez reveals inspiration from athlete who accidentally leaked Honda exit

Factory Ducati rider Marc Marquez has revealed that his compatriot, Rafael Nadal, was an inspiration for him in his recovery from a series of career-threatening injuries.

Marquez, who is among the nominees for the Comeback of the Year prize at the Laureus sports awards, said that he was sitting on his sofa watching Nadal win the Australian Open – his first Grand Slam title since the 2020 French Open – and decided that he would also be able to return to the top of MotoGP.

“Of course, in sport, we have a lot of comebacks and there are great inspirations, but, for me, [Rafael] Nadal was a real inspiration,” Marquez told Laureus.

“I remember the day he was playing the Australian Open and he won after a lot of injuries; and I was there at home on the sofa with my arm completely blocked and I said ‘Okay, I will do [this, too]’.

“A lot of days, a lot of moments, but Rafa Nadal was a great inspiration.”

Nadal’s tennis career was one that had been dominated at times by injury, perhaps most notably several knee problems in the first half of the 2010s. By the time Marquez was watching him win the 2022 Australian Open, Nadal was returning after his 2021 season was cut short by a left foot injury.

For Marquez, the story has been slightly different, in that it was shoulder injuries which were most prevalent during the middle of his career, with problematic left and right shoulders in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

But the chain of injuries which began with the humerus fracture in 2020 and from which he didn’t fully emerge until the middle of 2023 when he returned from the fractured thumb he sustained at the MotoGP season opener in Portugal was one which threatened to end his career, most seriously with the twisted healing of the aforementioned humerus and the recurrence of diplopia in 2022.

While Marquez was fit in 2023, the Honda he was riding was incapable of winning. 

His decision to exit HRC early to join Ducati - a move which was leaked by Nadal himself in 2023 - has resulted in five Grand Prix wins since the beginning of 2024, including a perfect start with the Ducati Lenovo Team to the 2025 season with pole, Sprint victory, and Grand Prix victory at each of the opening two rounds in Thailand and Argentina, respectively.