A special Sunday: Marc Marquez returns to Portimao

Young, ambitious, fresh drivers, have given the change, never as in this time frame, to the consumed champions, the third-digit ones in the calculation of the Grand Prix held.

The young people who came to the fore of the highest level motorcycle championship, with the absence of the Champion, could not be measured with the absolute yardstick, but the Champion himself, remaining out, could not yet measure himself with the terrible guys who came up from Moto2.

The abrupt interruption of the continuity of Marc’s presence crystallized on him the title of absolute yardstick, that title that made us comment on the races of 2020 and the beginning of this year with the ifs and buts, that title that was recognized even by absent and that made less full the successes of those who remained to compete and won or that further lowered the value of those who are not succeeded in succeeding him on the throne left vacant.

In Portimao, what was the shadow that has revolved over the World Cup, it will again take physical consistency, volume, color, and we will finally know.

We will know first of all whether the bar set by Marquez’s value is still up to the task before the accident, but we will also know if any of the young people have reached the level of being able to overcome it.

We will know if Marc himself will be able to compete at the levels he himself has set. We will be able to assess how the splendid competitive arrogance of the Spaniard is drawn intact by the crucible of absence and physical suffering: Marc Marquez in his career has fallen a lot, no one like him had pushed himself to the limit of the unsurpassed laws of physics, but this time he really hurt himself.

Will we be faced with the same arrogant, unconscious, surrendering rider or not? In a good way, let’s be clear… It would be reductive then to talk about Spanish leaving out the other half of the combination that defines the centaur: there is the rider and there is his bike.

So last but not in terms of importance, in Portugal on Sunday we will be able to evaluate more clearly the state of competitiveness of Honda: are we faced with a bike that only Marc Marquez was able to interpret, as happened at Ducati with Stoner,or for the most powerful Japanese company in the world the technical crisis regardless of the absence of its strongest champion?

How far behind the HRC in development and how long did this delay depend on the absence of Marquez’s noble butt on the RC213V saddle? How much will the absolute value of the technical advantage accumulated by Yamaha, Ducati and Suzuki really be?

The generalized difficulties encountered by honda riders at this beginning of the season will certainly not help to instill in Marc the certainty, the firm point, of finding at least one competitive vehicle as he left it, and this will be a bigger problem …

Final: these are all questions that in number and quality logic suggests to us that it will not only be the weekend that comes to dissipate them: it will take even deeper into the course of the season, but what is certain that everyone’s mood, in Portimao, with the most famous of the Marquezs finally on the track, will have different nuances and moods and , for many, new. It will certainly be an interesting weekend and we spectators are very ready to experience it.