Honda confirms Marc Marquez will sit out Styrian MotoGP too

Repsol Honda will be without its six-time MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez for the third of the triple back-to-back races this weekend, it has confirmed.

The Spaniard is still in recovery from the fractured arm he suffered during the season-opening Spanish MotoGP and the subsequent second operation he required in the run up to round three in Brno to fix a damaged titanium plate.

Though Marquez was always expected to miss Brno and the following Austrian MotoGP over the weekend, there remained murmurings that he could attempt to return for the Styrian MotoGP, once again at the Red Bull Ring.

However, Honda has formally confirmed Marquez will indeed take the opportunity of time to get more recovery time in, not least because there will be a three week break between the Styrian and the San Marino MotoGP race on September 13.

In the meantime, Honda will continue with its line-up of Alex Marquez and substitute Stefan Bradl, with the pair looking to improve on a difficult weekend in Austria that yielded a 13th place for the former and 17th for the latter.

“More points from the weekend is good, but the race wasn’t what we wanted,” said Alex Marquez, who briefly ran inside the top ten at the restart before slipping back.

“In the first race I had a good feeling and we made a good start so I was able to make up some positions but then the red flag came out.

“For the restart of the second race, I was strong on the start again, but the feeling wasn’t the same and I struggled to keep up because the feeling with the new tyres wasn’t the same.

“Again, I had a lot of front pushing with the new tyres. I’m looking forward to coming back again next week, in Jerez we improved a lot for the second race.”