Alex Marquez suffered a neck vertebra fracture and a right collarbone fracture in his horror crash during MotoGP’s Catalan Grand Prix.
The collarbone will be operated on on Sunday, but the neck injury will require “further evaluation” next week, according to his Gresini team.
Marquez was battling for the lead at Barcelona when he was caught out by an issue for KTM’s Pedro Acosta right in front of him, and had to dramatically change his trajectory to avoid a terrible collision.
A more minor collision did occur, but more pertinently Marquez’s Ducati was sent careening off-track, with no possibility to scrub off substantial speed before he arrived into the grass at the side of the track and control was fully lost.
He was thrown off his bike, just narrowly avoiding the barrier but suffering a hard impact with the ground – and was subsequently treated at the scene for a prolonged period of time.
After a visit to the medical centre and then a transfer to local hospital, Marquez was diagnosed with what Gresini was disclosed as a “marginal fracture” of his seventh cervical vertebra.
His other reported injury, the collarbone fracture, will be “stabilised with a plate”, as per Gresini.
There are no fresh updates yet on the condition of LCR Honda rider Johann Zarco, who was the most injured party in the race’s other big accident and was likewise taken to hospital via medical centre, for what was described by LCR as “a further examination to his left leg”.
Team boss Lucio Cecchinello had told TNT Sport: “They will perform an MRI, scan, to check what they have. He has pain in the left leg, pain around the knee, but fortunately he has no concussion, he has no injury in the upper part of the body, not in the feet, in the ankle.
“Looks like he has pain, yes, just in the femoral area. I really hope that there will be no bad news coming.”
