The Ducati rider had stormed through from sixth place to second in the space of four laps, but lost the chance of a podium finish when he crashed out at Luffield with six laps remaining.

Speaking afterwards, Iannone revealed that part of the reason for the fall had been severe pain in his right forearm, a recurrence of the arm pump problem on which he had surgery in 2013.

“From nine laps to go, [with] my forearm, I had a big problem, a big pain,” explained the Italian. “I didn’t have control for the last nine laps, it was very difficult to control the bike in braking.

“For me it was [also] very difficult to change direction, difficult to ride the bike. I don’t know why, it’s the first time since my surgery in 2013, and it’s very strange.”

Explaining the crash in more detail, he added: “Before I arrived before at the last corner, I changed direction and I arrived very late. I touched the bump, lost the front, and crashed.

“But I think from the first laps the feeling with the bike was very good. I had a little bit more speed compared to Vale [Rossi], Cal [Crutchlow] and Marc [Marquez], but unfortunately I could not control the bike.”

Dovizioso also in pain

Iannone’s teammate Andrea Dovizioso suffered a similar arm pain issue on the second works Ducati, but was able to bank a sixth place finish.

He commented that the GP16 remains a very physical bike to ride, especially with high-speed direction changes.

“I’m not happy about the final result, but starting from the fourth row it’s very difficult to gain the position in the first laps, so I lost the first group,” said Dovizioso.

“I pushed really hard to catch them, but I didn’t ride in a smooth way. Our bike is fast but too physical, so I lose completely the power in the right arm.

“The track is demanding, very difficult, before the middle of the race I took a lot of risks to try to catch them, but I couldn’t fight until the end.

“Without the physical problem, we had the speed to fight for the podium, maybe second.”