As MotoGP gears up for the second half of the season, one revealing metric to watch for Marc Marquez could be his race heart rate—a potential indicator of whether his intensive summer training has restored strength to his right shoulder.
Despite slashing his World Championship deficit from 102 to just 18 points before the summer break, Marquez openly admitted that his weakened right arm remained his biggest limitation. “The bike is working, as is the team and my mentality. I need to work on my body to try to make a step forward this summer; my holidays will be shorter,” he said after his Sachsenring double win.
The reigning champion specifically highlighted his right arm: “It’s the only point I need to improve. I will try to work hard just to wake up some muscles that are sleeping. And if we can do it, then we can try to fight for the championship in this second part of the season.”
Marquez explained that, after surgery to relieve a compressed radial nerve, he no longer has numbness or pain, but still suffers from a lack of power and muscle in his right arm. “I compensate with other parts of my body, so it’s general fatigue,” he said. “It’s also true that my heart rate—because we know how high the heart rate is in the races—since I came back from the injury is higher than ever. But at home it’s lower than ever.
“So that means when I’m riding the bike, I’m compensating with other things, for what I’m missing in the right arm.”
As the series heads to Silverstone, Marquez’s heart rate data could offer a unique glimpse into the effectiveness of his summer training—and whether the champion is ready to mount a full title assault.
