Honda has confirmed its eight-time Grand Prix World Champion Marc Marquez won’t be present for the press conference to herald the start of Honda and HRC’s motorsport season later this week.
The Japanese manufacturer is presenting all of its key riders for the season ahead with one notable exception in Marquez, who is still recovering from a bout of diplopia, a condition that gives you double vision.
It’s an injury Marquez first experienced back in 2011 following a crash at Sepang while contesting the Moto2 World Championship, the condition reoccurring in an accident while training that ultimately ruled him out of the final two rounds of the 2021 MotoGP season.
A galling time for Marquez, who also entered the 2019, 2020 and 2021 MotoGP off-seasons recovering from injury, the diplopia diagnosis is particularly frustrating as there is no clear indication of when it might go away.
For now, Marquez is back in training ahead of what he hopes will be a full recovery in time for the first round of pre-season testing at Sepang in February aboard the latest generation Honda RC213V.
In the meantime, his Honda MotoGP counterparts Pol Espargaro and LCR pairing Alex Marquez and Takaaki Nakagami will take part in the press conference, as will new Honda WorldSBK signings Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.
