Marc Marquez will join the Repsol Honda Team at Round 13 of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship to “stay connected” with his crew for when he’s eventually ready to get back on the bike.

It has now been 10 weeks since Marc Marquez went under the knife for more surgery on his right arm and the Repsol Honda Team reports that after several weeks of rest and light physiotherapy, his training regime has now been taken up a notch. The team also reports that Marquez will be at the Red Bull Ring in Austria for the next round of the MotoGP championship “to reconnect with the Repsol Honda Team and begin to make a plan for the future”.

Marquez has continued to keep his fitness in the gym and is now concentrating on strengthening his right arm, adding resistance training to his regular routine of running and swimming.

“Step by step I am feeling better, and the bone is healing in a good way, which is the best news of all,” Marquez said. “We are still in rehabilitation mode; I am working very hard on the cardio side to try and be ready. At the end of August, I have another medical check, from there we can make another step with the rehabilitation and really start pushing and building muscles.

“Some days are better than others, but this is all part of the journey. I’m optimistic, but I don’t want to say too much about timings until we have this check – it’s not the time to push too much. I have waited a long time for these kinds of feelings.

“It has been a struggle, it’s not two days or two months I have been struggling, it’s two years,” he continued. “I won some races last year like this, but I was struggling a lot. In Jerez I realised something had to change. It was hard and is hard now mentally – not because I am not racing, but because you always have this doubt about the arm. I can’t have another operation. I am convinced this one will be good, but these thoughts are always there in the back of your mind.”

The Repsol Honda Team says Marquez is still very involved with the development of the Honda RC213V, and he has been in regular contact with Stefan Bradl to stay up-to-date with the current bike and its development.

“Honda is in a critical moment,” Marquez said. “I am speaking a lot with my team and trying to understand the 2022 bike, the situation and what is happening. This is why I will go to Austria, to speak to everyone and to meet with the HRC staff from Japan to work for the future.

“I’m speaking a lot with Stefan Bradl as well, us and Santi are working together and testing things – both know how I ride. I said in Mugello that I will be at home, but I want to stay connected. With the previous operation I disconnected too much, and I want to be involved so that when I come back, I will have everything fresh.”

MotoGP will head to Austria for Round 13 of the championship which takes place on 21 August.