MotoGP Austin: Marquez ‘here to race! Scared but born for adrenaline’

King of COTA Marc Marquez returns to Austin in difficult circumstances, after the Repsol Honda rider suffered a second bout of diplopia in just six months.

Having struggled throughout the Indonesia weekend with the new Michelin casing brought in especially for the high temperatures and challenging surface at Mandalika, Marquez suffered multiple crashes on the RC213V, culminating in a massive highside in morning warm up. The resulting head trauma brought about a recurrence of his double vision due to nerve damage, with the Spaniard sitting out of Argentina to recover.

While questions hung in the air over his attendance at the track he has dominated since its, and his, arrival in MotoGP, a late call had the 29-year-old on a plane to Texas in time for Thursday’s press conference.

“After Mandalika, was a really hard week,” Marquez admitted on his most recent recovery. “But lucky for me that the injury, the vision injury was much less effect than last time. Even for Argentina was very close to come but I didn’t feel motivated. I didn’t feel motivated to take that risk to come in Argentina and I didn’t want. We discussed with the doctor and we prefer to stay at home, relax and then I start to train again in a good way.

“This week I had another doctor check and the vision was fixed. One more week and then I try a bike. Let’s see. Let’s see. Of course I arrive here not in my best way, here in AmericasGP but we will try to do a great FP1 and then from that point start our weekend.

“Actually, I don’t remember a lot,” he said of his latest accident. “Just I remember more from the video, from the images, than what I feel, what I remember.

“But it’s true that the Indonesia GP was one of my worst GPs in my career, because I crash too