Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso confirmed the corner-speed issues that continue to plague the Desmodesdici weren't eradicated by a new frame he used at the Assen MotoGP round.

Although the Italian worked his way from 11th on the grid to fourth - but lost another chunk of points to Marc Marquez - Dovizioso said the fast and flowing nature of Assen proved their biggest problem is still in evidence.

"We can’t be happy 100 per cent because this track it showed the characteristic of our bike and it’s normal because the consumption of the rear tyre is really high in this track, there was a lot of wind and it doesn’t help us," said Dovizioso.

When you have to change direction with the high speed this is not the best, there are long corners where you have to make the speed there and it’s not our best point. So unfortunately it confirmed something, so we can’t go home with a smile.

“Fourth is not too bad but the gap is too big and unfortunately I’m not too surprised about that. We are not happy because we want more because we want to fight for the championship and again Marc also today he did second but apart of that the speed he had was really good. So this is not the best for us.”

Dovizioso is now almost two race wins behind Marquez in the championship chase and he also faces seeing the Repsol Honda man clear off into the distance this coming weekend at the Sachsenring, where the little Spaniard is historically unbeatable.