Luca Marini out in Qatar: “I have no energy, I have no strength.” Honda left with Dixon alone

The official Honda garage is completely empty. Luca Marini will not start the Qatar Grand Prix: after Sunday’s Warm Up at Lusail, the rider and the Honda HRC Castrol team mutually agreed to withdraw because of fatigue that has been affecting the Italian for weeks. With Joan Mir already sidelined, only Jake Dixon will represent the factory team in tonight’s race.

The MotoGP grid is therefore down to 16 riders. According to Sky Sport, the last time a race started with so few competitors was at Valencia in 2011.

The Japanese manufacturer announced the news in a brief post on social media, which also made its priority clear: getting the rider back to full fitness for the season finale. "Due to his ongoing fatigue, Luca Marini and the Honda HRC Castrol team have decided to withdraw him from the Qatar Grand Prix and focus on the final two rounds of the 2026 MotoGP World Championship"

Marini had still taken part in the morning’s Warm Up, completing four flying laps. His Qatar weekend had been an uphill battle so far: 14th in qualifying and 13th at the finish of Saturday’s Sprint.

Marini himself had made it clear after the Sprint that the situation was serious. "I was the problem today. I still don’t have any strength, and even just finishing the race wasn’t easy," he admitted. He added: "I feel sorry for the team, because we can see that there’s a lot more potential this weekend. It’s like yesterday, at Sepang and at Phillip Island: I simply have no energy, no strength. For now, all we can do is try to rest and reassess the situation".

The illness has been lingering for some time. In Australia, Marini was forced to stop after FP1: MotoGP medical director Dr Angel Charte diagnosed him with a viral infection. He returned to the bike in Malaysia and finished the Grand Prix in seventh place, but the days he spent in Italy before travelling to Lusail were not enough to get him back to full fitness.

It is a major blow for HRC. Joan Mir is also sidelined with fatigue and vision problems: after returning in Malaysia following seven weeks out, he had to come back to the pits at Sepang due to dizziness during Sunday’s race and was unable to make the trip to Qatar. Dixon, a Honda rider in the World Superbike Championship, is taking his place.

Marini joins the list of absentees this Sunday, which includes Pecco Bagnaia, injured in the Sprint, and the entire Yamaha team, which stayed at home because of company-imposed travel restrictions to the Middle East. The increasingly depleted grid could also affect the calculations for Marc Marquez’s first match point in the title race, as we discussed in Absences in Qatar could complicate Marc Márquez’s MotoGP title bid.

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