“I am bitterly disappointed to have needed surgery, which effectively rules out any chance I have of the title this year. There isn’t a set recovery timetable for this, but I’ll be missing a number of rounds and even when I return, it’ll take some time to get back up to speed. My focus now though is to do everything I need to do to, to get fit and healthy and back to being 100% and we’ll just take it from there. I felt so good this season, and I think that showed with my results and how comfortably I was leading the championship, but this is motocross and anything can happen at any moment unfortunately. A big thanks to everyone in Honda HRC for all their work, and to all my fans around the world who support me. I hope to see everyone at the races later in the year.”

“It is never easy to hear the news that your rider needs surgery, especially when the rider is leading the championship with a solid lead. However, those were the cards we were dealt after Tim’s crash in Switzerland and now he’s had the surgery and on the road to recovery. We aren’t going to be put an exact timetable on when he’ll return, but instead just support all his efforts and make sure he is fully prepared for when he does decide to line up again. We still have Ruben riding well and the two MX2 guys are showing a lot of promise, so our work doesn’t stop, but obviously it is a huge disappointment for the whole of Honda HRC.”