The VR46 Ducati rider was never able to🌸 make an impression over the 23 laps, dropping fr✤om seventh to ninth and only regaining a place when Alex Marquez fell with eight laps to go.

“I don't know,” Bezzecchi shrugged, when asked what had gone wrong. “But it was not lik🃏e in the practices or in the Sprint.

“We have to check, but I felt very bad since the second corner, and from that moment, I under🌃stood that my race was going to be very very difficult.

“Unfortunately I di𓃲dn't have feeling at all with the bike. We have to check, but it's very strange, because we didn't touch the bike, but I struggled a lot.

“I w𒀰as having many problems with the front feeling, losing the front many times. I couldn't get close to any rider, because then I was also not stopping anymore.”

Bezzecchi’s words pointed to some 🅷kind of front tyre issue, but when asked directly he replied: “Still I don't know.”

Like many, the #72 had switched from the soft to medium rear for the longer race, but highlighted: “This morning [in warm-up] with the medium, I was first. And yesterday with the medium, I was very very fast. So my bike was good wit💙h medium and soft.

“But it was more on the front, I felt very bad with the front, I had no feeling, I c♉ouldn't bra🌱ke late, I couldn't go in with the brakes. And when I was close I couldn't stop. I always go wide, I struggled all the race.”

The only positive was that “until the race today I𝔉 was very 🦂fast.”

Bezzecchi, whose team-mate Luca Marini finished fourt💃h, has now slipped 21 points behind double winner Bagnaia heading into this weekend’s Sachsenring round.