‘Never seen him this down, but he’s improving’ – Alex Marquez on Marc

Alex Marquez says his brother Marc was more gloomy than he can ever recall in the first days after his latest diplopia diagnosis – but is now “feeling really good”.

The senior Marquez crashed in Sunday warm-up at Mandalika and suffered a concussion that ruled him out of the race. He then subsequently developed another case of diplopia and is currently amid his latest spell on the sidelines.

It is the third occurrence of double vision on Marquez’s grand prix career and also yet another setback in what has been an injury-ravaged period of his career, starting from his season-wrecking arm fracture at Jerez in 2020.

However, Honda has been keen to stress that this new incidence of diplopia is less serious than the one from the end of last year, which had ruled Marquez out of the final two races of the season and severely limited his off-season training.

His opthalmologist, Dr Bernardo Sanchez Dalmau, said after Marquez’s latest visit earlier this week that he had seen a “a very favourable evolution in the paralysis of the fourth right [eye] nerve”.

Asked by The Race ahead of the Argentine MotoGP race, which the elder Marquez is missing, how both siblings were taking this latest development, LCR Honda rider Alex Marquez said: “I mean, the first days, it’s normal that he was really down. I think I’ve never seen him like this down.

“But fortunately, the improvements are there. He is feeling really good.

“This morning, when I saw the new schedule [without Friday running], I just made a joke to him, I said ‘you have one more day to be fit and to come’, just to make a joke and make him a little bit more happy… he said to me ‘yeah, but still no, I cannot’.

“But I mean, he sees some improvement and this is really good for the head, so I hope to see him back really soon, because… I mean, it’s my brother, I want to see him on track, but also for all the Honda riders it’s good to have him also on the track and put the bike on the limit.”

The elder Marquez is being replaced by Honda test rider Stefan Bradl this weekend. The Honda contingent is also missing the younger Marquez’s LCR team-mate Takaaki Nakagami in Argentina, as he has tested positive for COVID-19.