Luca M✅arini looked poised to make a perfect start to the 2020 Moto2 season, leading the way for most of the Qatar Motoꦯ2 race.

But the Sky 🅷VR46 rider will leave Losail pointless after a late drop in pace was followed by a collision at the final corner.

Marini held the advantage from laps 2 to 14 and briefly looked on the verge of breaking clear (pictured). But with six lap๊s remaining he suddenly began to suffer front-tyre issues and was swallowed by the chasing pack.

The struggling Italian had dropped to 14th as he approached the final corner, when he was kn🦩ocked from his Kalex during a pass by Jake Dixon.

Marini was initially seen holding his wrist, but was༒ given the all-clear after medical checks.

"Not the ending I wanted," Marini said. "I had a great start, felt really comfortable and managed to set a great pace but suddenly I started to lose confidence with the front tyre and was forced to g🦂ive up many positions. I could not do anything.

"Too bad for the crash on the last lap, I don't know exꦅactly what happened. Fortunately, after a check at the medical centre I’m ok."

Dixon was quick to apologise for the contact.

"I didn’t realise Marini went down until we came in afterwards and&꧑nbsp;I saw on the TV that me and him collided," said the Petronas rider.

"🌳First of all, I want to apologise to him and his team because I didn’t intentionally try to hit him. As I committed to 💙go I had to turn in and I had nowhere to go, so apologies to them and I hope that he’ll be all right."

Meanwhile, Marini's team-mate Marco Bezzecchi also suffered the same front🐻-tyre problem.

"6-7 laps from the finish I started to lose faith in the front tyre, mainly on the right s💙ide," said Bezzecchi, who featured in the top seven but eventually finished twelfth. "A 🦩real shame for the whole team because Luca also had a similar problem."

"We need to analyseꦛ the data and understand exactly what happened," added team boss Pablo Nieto.