British time trial champion Alex Dowsett has abandoned the Tour de France on stage 12, after being unable to recover from the effects of his crash on stage four.

Dowsett, 26, was one of ten Brits to start this year’s race in Utrecht – his debut Tour – and finished 13th in the individual time trial.

He spent much of the first road stage pulling on the front of the second group, after his team leader’s Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde were caught behind a split.

But an innocuous crash on the cobbled stage four, which led to Dowsett receiving six stitches for a bad cut on his arm, hit the Essex man hard.

He recovered somewhat for the team time trial, setting the pace alongside Italian champion Adriano Malori on the flat sections as the Spanish team finished four seconds behind stage winners BMC Racing.

Hi all, just to let you know @alexdowsett is ok, there’s just a bit missing out of his arm….the before picture pic.twitter.com/cAJVgMEvIv

— Cyclism (@CyclismCycling) July 7, 2015

But, having only just finished inside the time cut on stage 11, Dowsett abandoned on today’s stage 12.

His team tweeted confirmation that it was related to his stage four crash, with Dowsett – who was lying in the penultimate place overall after stage 11 – joining former Rapha-Condor man Zak Dempster on the day’s DNF list.