The MotoGP summer break is in full swing, the extended hiatus marking as good as the mid-way point in the season with eight rounds down and 12 still to come once the teams and riders return in August.

For some, the summer break is the chance for some riders to put their feet up, whereas for others they will be putting feet up because the doctors told them too, such was the prolificness of an injury quota that led to many literally walking wounded into the holidays.

Indeed, the introduction of the Sprint Race and a reshuffled weekend format has put greater pressure on riders to push their limits and - on occasion - overstep them too.

With this in mind, which riders are seeking some slower paced sun, sea and sand after spending too much time splashing about in the gravel trap?

If you have even a passing interest in MotoGP, we’re fairly confident a certain Marc Marquez would be the response to the question ‘which rider has crashed more than any other in 2023 so far’.

But, in a shock twist… actually, no, there is no twist here, the older of the Marquez brothers tops this table in a rather shocking indictment that goes a long way to proving why he is muddling around at the bottom end of the overall points’ table.

With 14 falls to his name, Marquez has fallen more than any other, a damning statistic made all the more worrisome by the fact he has only started eight of a possible 16 races this season. Of these, five came on weekend alone at the German MotoGP, while crashes have put paid to DNFs in each of the five full-length GPs he has started this year.

This isn’t an unusual position for Marquez to be in though. In fact, he has topped this postseason table as often as Meryl Streep has been nominated for an Oscar, even during his most dominant years having adopted a bruising but somehow successful method of over-stepping the limits in practice and reining it in for race day.

Still, given there are now double the number of races for riders this year, Marquez will still need a bruising second half of the year to beat his record of 27 crashes in one season.

At least Marquez can perhaps take heart in pointing the finger as its bucking bronco of a Honda RC213V since next on the tally is his Repsol Honda team-mate Joan Mir, who has racked up a worrying 12 crashes from nine races himself.

Pulled together, despite the factory Honda duo collectively starting only 17 of a possible 32 races this season, they have amassed 26 crashes so far this year.

In fact, it is something of a double whammy for the Marquez family in the accident and emergency department, with Marc’s brother Alex Marquez hitting the deck on 12 occasions, albeit from a full complement of 16 starts. Rookie Augusto Fernandez, Jack Miller and Aleix Espargaro follow up next with 11, ten and nine crashes respectively.

At the other end of the scale, Pecco Bagnaia demonstrates exactly why he is way out front in the overall standings with fewest crashes among the full-time riders, the Italian slipping off just four times so far, three of these having occurred during full-length races.

And props to that old war horse Dani Pedrosa, who managed to keep it sunny side up for the entire Spanish MotoGP weekend, which may not sound like much until you consider Pol Espargaro managed to rack up two crashes despite having not yet started a race in 2023.