Jeffrey Herlings has decided not to make a comeback this year, despite being fully recovered from injuries following his crash at the Mantova MXGP last month. He blames his foot injury from two years ago for his problems so will have surgery to make sure he’s fully ready for 2021. After losing the red plate when he got hurt, he’s currently 136 points behind leader Tim Gajser but there are still 300 up for grabs in the final six GP rounds.

“I have decided to sit out the rest of the 2020 season. All year I’ve been struggling with a recent injury on my foot and I believe it’s the best solution to get this fixed before I jump back on the orange machine,” he said on social media. “So I will have surgery on that next week to hopefully be able to finally being able to ride a dirt bike again in 2 years without pain.

“The recent crash happened because my foot came off as I had to put my foot differently on the peg as I always had pain. That’s why I went over the handlebars and crashed on my neck.

“On another note the neck and back injury is fully healed. The last 2 years have been difficult, due to the foot I wasn’t able to perform at my best. I believe this can be fixed and that we will have bright years in front of us. For now I would like to thank all my sponsors and partners for believing in me and we will strike back in the future.”