Gajser has surgery as championship dreams are over

Honda HRC’s Tim Gajser has undergone a successful surgery on his injured right shoulder as a result of his crash in Switzerland on Monday 21st April. The nasty incident at the Frauenfeld circuit, wasn’t initially showing such a serious prognosis but after attempting physiotherapy to try and improve the shoulder, surgery was deemed as the best option.

Unfortunately, this means that Gajser’s title aspirations are now over, despite a start to the season that saw him podium the first six rounds, winning three of them and pulling out a lead of nearly 50 points at one stage. He looked in imperious form, and although it was early-on, the way he was riding and the way he was continually increasing his lead had all the signs pointed towards a sixth world title for the Slovenian.

Instead, he will now be sitting on the sidelines for a number of weeks as his body heals up from this latest setback, working with his medical team to make sure everything is done correctly so that when he does return, it won’t take him long to reach that same level of performance.

Honda HRC will continue in Lugo, Spain this weekend, with the trio of Ruben Fernandez (MXGP), Ferruccio Zanchi (MX2) and Valerio Lata (MX2) racing the eighth round of the 2025 World Motocross Championship.

Tim Gajser  243
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.
Marcus Pereira de Freitas – HRC General Manager – MXGP
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.