Luca Marini l💖ooked poised to make a perfect start to the 2020 Moto2ಌ season, leading the way for most of the Qatar Moto2 race.

But the Sky🗹 VR46 rider will leave Losail pointless afteꦓr 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 wit⛄h s🌟ix laps 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 knocked from his Kalex during a pass by Jake Dixon.

Marini was initi😼ally seen hold🎐ing 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 set𒁃 a great pace but suddenly I started to lose confidence𓆉 with the front tyre and was forced to give up many positions. I could not do anything.

"Too bad for the crash on the last lap, I don't k🔜now exactly what happened. Fortunately, a෴fter 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 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 apolo✤gies to them and I hope that he’ll be all right."

Meanwh💜ile, 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 side," said Bezzecchi, who featured in the top seven but eventually finished twelfꦑth. "A real shame for the whole team because Luca also had a similar problem."

"We need to analyse the data and understand exactly what happened," added team boss P🎉ablo Nieto.