Factory Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo flew back to Barcelona late last night after taking a decision to have his broken collarbone operated on earlier rather than later, so went under the knife at 2am today for a two-hour operation.

Surgeons at Barcelona General Hospital bolted on a titanium plate and eight screws to fix a displaced, complex fracture of the third medial and secure fragments. It is not known yet for how long Lorenzo will be out.

"Following the medical check at the Circuit’s Medical Centre first and at the Assen Hospital later, yesterday Jorge decided to be operated on as soon as possiblem" said team manager Wilco Zeelenberg.

"Unfortunately no operation room was available in Assen due to some other very urgent life threatening operations that had much higher priority than Jorge's collarbone and therefore we flew to Barcelona, where a surgery room was made available at the Hospital General de Catalunya.

"The surgery, that started at 2am and finished at 4am has had good results and now Jorge is sleeping, exhausted from such a long and tough day. We have to wait till he wakes up before making any further evaluation of Jorge’s physical conditions and how long his recovery will take."