Marc Marquez's return to MotoGP action at the Italian Grand Prix significantly broadened our understanding of the two main questions surrounding him right now.

To Marquez himself, one of those questions - whether he can get back into the 2026 title fight - matters substantially less than the other: whether he can recover sufficiently to make continuing in MotoGP worth his while.

Marquez is known to have already committed to a new two-year Ducati deal. But nobody will force him to ride against his will, and he is not yet prepared to say he will definitively be on the grid.

But it's trending in the right way. The same cannot be said of his chances of defending the title this year.

The surgery verdict

Marquez was as productive as anyone could reasonably expect at Mugello, given his limited physical resource and the track's reputation for exposing any such shortcoming.

Coming off a surgery to remove two screws and a bone fragment from his long-suffering shoulder, Marquez was the quickest Ducati in qualifying, then put up a strong fight in the best-of-the-rest group in both races for as long as he could. He was fifth in the sprint and seventh in the grand prix.

"I just gave everything until the right arm said, 'OK, stop'," he said on Sunday. "I remember feeling super tired and I checked the pitboard and 10 laps still remained."

He gave up six seconds to the leader over those remaining 10 laps - but was not bothered by that one bit. The fatigue was expected, but the key was for it not to be accompanied by any sign of lingering nerve issues.

"For me, the most important [outcome] of this weekend is that the numbness was not there. I feel I had a new feeling on the arm this weekend, so this for me was the most important and was the target of the surgery.

"I'm happy with the decision I took to come here. One part of me was like: 'Come on, stay at home and come back in Balaton, that is an easier track, a slower track'.

But another part was saying to me: 'All your career you have given your 100%, so if you are not on the bike [when you can be], with the OK of the doctors, you are not Marc'."

The championship picture

But any who believed Mugello can kickstart a Marquez resurgence towards the two Aprilia riders at the top of the current standings will have been disillusioned.

Neither of the factory Aprilia duo had a perfect weekend. Marco Bezzecchi erred in the first braking of the sprint, and Jorge Martin wasn't totally in the groove after a bruising Barcelona. And at the same time both put up around 30 points - more than double of what Marquez scored.

He is now 102 points back from Bezzecchi. A maximum of 407 is still up for grabs - but Marquez isn't ready to score 407, and Bezzecchi is averaging around 25 points per round, with Martin not far back.

A fit Marquez would be a game changer. As he himself alluded to - miming a person using a juice squeezer as he struggled to find the right words in English - the Ducati's true peak level remains a mystery because Marquez cannot yet know how well he's exploiting it.

"I cannot answer your question, if it's better or worse [than the Aprilia], because I'm not... the juice of the Ducati, still I think it has more juice!" he giggled.

Right now it's Fabio Di Giannantonio who has been squeezing the most 'pace juice' from this bike - and Marquez should rightly believe that, at his 100%, he can handle Di Giannantonio.

But all through the weekend he treated the points picture as a total irrelevance.

What about the future?

Marquez's current mission is an exploratory one instead: to see what kind of physical level he can get to with the MotoGP bike now, to find out what his new '100%' is.

He made several references to this through the weekend - and they seemed to come with an undertone of 'this will decide whether I stick around'.

It felt the most pronounced on Sunday.

"Let's see where I can arrive. Nobody says that I will come back for the future as I was before - but I will try. You know my mentality.

"I'm ready to try, then let's see, but I don't want to give up without trying."

He added later, when asked directly whether he had 100% confidence about continuing into 2027-28: "If I'm here, it's because I want to push my career on - just because this year I don't enjoy it, but last year I was enjoying a lot, so, I want to try.

"Then let's see which will be my physical condition in the future. But if I'm here, it's not that I'm here to fight for the title and to take points. I'm here to try to prolong my career."

Mugello was a clear positive step for two more years of Marquez - but it's also clear that it is not yet a foregone conclusion.