On Thursday, MotoGP announced that it had reached an agreement with the Qatar authorities for the entire paddock present in the country to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, following the successful launch of the region among its population.
The vaccine on offer is the Pfizer vaccine, which requires that the two doses be divided into 19 days.
Marquez will therefore travel to Qatar to deliver the first punch before returning home to continue training before returning to MotoGP, Motorsport.com learned.
Most of the MotoGP paddock received the first dose of the vaccine on Friday, although Takaaki Nakagami is known to have declined the offer.
Most of the Moto2 and Moto3 teams have changed their plans to stay in Qatar so that they can receive both doses of the vaccine.
“This is a fantastic opportunity that the government of Qatar is offering the MotoGP community and the Repsol Honda team is very grateful,” said Honda team boss Alberto Puig.
“We understand that Qatar wants to protect everyone in the world championship and also its people.
“As for Marc, he will have to be vaccinated because he was created to fight this virus”.
Marquez was released by doctors to start riding a motorcycle again, as the right arm he broke at last year’s Spanish Grand Prix finally showed significant signs of healing after a third operation in December.
Honda included Márquez in the provisional list of entrants for the Qatar Grand Prix on March 28, and the Spaniard did not rule out the possibility of running the race, despite having failed pre-season testing.
However, there are still doubts as to whether it will be ready to run when the season begins, just 13 days from now.
If Márquez is unable to race in the opening round, HRC test driver Stefan Bradl will likely take his place, as he did from last year’s Czech Republic Grand Prix.