Marc Marquez MotoGP 2025 title win up there with Tiger Woods and Rafa Nadal as ‘greatest sporting comebacks'
Updated 21/11/2025 at 17:22 GMT
TNT Sports commentator Gavin Emmett has hailed Marc Marquez's run to the 2025 MotoGP title as "up there as one of the greatest sporting comebacks" after the Spaniard returned from a nasty arm break and four surgeries, as well as a loss of form at Honda, to win the title in style. Marquez won 11 of his 18 races this year and was almost 100 points clear despite not racing in the last four races.
2025 world champion Marc Marquez wins MotoGP award
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TNT Sports commentator Gavin Emmett hailed Marc Marquez’s 2025 MotoGP title as "up there as one of the greatest sporting comebacks".
Marquez broke his arm badly at the start of the delayed 2020 season-opener in a nasty crash and subsequently, four surgeries were required over two years to get it back to the level it was.
Then came difficulties with Honda in 2023, where he finished 14th overall and only stood on the podium once.
That led to an early departure from Honda, and he moved to Gresini for the 2024 season – finishing third overall on a Ducati bike for the first time as he looked to get back to his best.
Then there was 2025, in his first year with Ducati Lenovo, where he registered 11 wins from 18 races, winning so comfortably he was still almost 100 points clear of brother Alex Marquez, despite not racing in the final four Grands Prix of the season and retiring in Indonesia after a crash.
Emmett certainly feels Marquez deserves all the praise he has got and compared him to some of the greatest sporting talents the world has seen.
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Speaking on TNT Sports’ Moto GP Review Breakdown show to look back on the 2025 season, Emmett said: "That is from 2023 of course, when he was having the doubts with Honda and knowing I’ve been through all my surgeries and whatever to get back to the top of the game, you have to think of what he has been through since that injury in 2020.
"Four surgeries, rotating the arm, all those things and what he has learnt in that time is calculating risk, he is a risk taker, but he has learnt, he has learnt after those crashes that he had in the USA.
"He learnt, actually, 'I do need to temper it, I do need to ride smoothly'.
"In that moment in 2023, he took a calculated risk, for him, I need to see if it is me or the bike.
"You look at some of the people who have come back from horrific injuries over the years, Rafa Nadal, for example, people who really have had these horrible injuries.
"Peyton Manning broke a bone in his neck and he came back to win a Super Bowl. There have been people across these sports.
"Tiger Woods, Andy Murray, has a metal hip and starts competing at the top level.
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"But, with the level of risk in our sport of what it takes to put yourself on the limit, every single ride, the length of time that his comeback has taken and also the career challenge he has done by moving from his comfort blanket of Honda and going to Ducati, going to ride for nothing, that all for me feeds into the story, on top of all the surgeries and injuries and all these things.
"To come and dominate in the way that he does this year, it has got to be up there as one of the greatest sporting comebacks of all time, it has to be."
Former World Superbikes world champion Neil Hodgson added that he expects there is even more to come from Marquez in the coming years and backed him to "destroy" records.
"He isn’t done yet, he is going to destroy every record there has ever been, or he is going to hurt himself trying," he said.
"That is Marc, that is what he has done from day one and he isn’t going to change."
Pecco to bounce back – Laverty
One person who was expected to mount more of a challenge to Marquez this year was Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia.
He began the season well, competing with Ducati team-mate Marquez and finishing on the podium in four of the first five races, including a victory in the USA.
From then on, though, the two-time Moto GP world champion struggled and finished only as high as third on three occasions in the next 11 races leading into Japan.
He then found something out of nowhere to triumph ahead of Marquez in Motegi, but that proved to be the last race of the season he finished, as he crashed out of the last five races.
Michael Laverty is expecting a strong showing from the Italian in 2026, though, despite his horrendous end to the season.
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"It is difficult to say exactly, but what we have learnt from Michele Pirro is that whatever the problems are, they won’t exist next year," Laverty said.
"Ducati have identified it, Pecco we know jumped back on the 2024 Ducati bike at the Misano test, arrived in Japan and somehow, the old Pecco was back for one weekend only.
"Then it just went, the wheels fell off the wagon again and he turned up in Indonesia and crashed out in last, crashed out of Australia, it just didn’t work again and then turns up in Malaysia, with little signs of Pecco, but it is just not all coming together for him."
Hodgson added that he thought Pecco would fight harder with his team-mate for the title instead of getting dominated as he has been.
He said: "I expected more fight from Pecco, I thought he was never going to allow Marc to dominate him like he has done in his team, but that is what happened.
"It has been a hard watch, hasn’t it? Yes, of course, there have been brilliant weekends from him, in Japan for example, which was bizarre. That sort of came from nowhere; he was untouchable.
"But think of everything else around it, there have been some appalling rounds where he has been battling for last and crashing out of last, it has been a strange season, hasn’t it."
You can watch the full episode of The Breakdown reflecting on the 2025 MotoGP season on TNT Sports 3 at 21:30 UK time on Saturday November 22.
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