Petronas Yamaha’s Franky Morbidelli scythed his way back to 18th in yesterday’s Qatar MotoGP clash as a reccuring problem with the shock meant he had very little feel from his M1.

The 2020 championship runner up confirmed it felt like his A-spec bike had no damping in the rear Ohlins unit and only Lorenzo Savadori was slower than the Italian at Losail.

“We had a problem on the grid, but we decided to go anyway for the race,” said Morbidelli.

“It is a problem that we need to investigate better because I think it happened also other times during the weekend, but in the race we saw clearly that something was wrong, and unfortunately we had to make such a bad race.

“It affected me during the whole race. I cannot tell you what it is because we are not sure yet. We are trying to understand well what it is.

“Basically, the rear-end of the bike starts to feel ‘empty’, like I have no damping in the shock and I have no shock. I can’t turn. Well, I can turn, but I need to ride 1-second slower. I can accelerate, but I need to ride 1-second slower.

“That’s the effect that I have. We don’t know the cause yet. We are trying to investigate, I’m sure the Yamaha guys will help me in this matter.”