A sombre mood set in as bad news reached the travelling local team of Irish Red Bull Rookie rider Josh Elliott to France late Thursday night.

The loss of road racing legend Robert Dunlop at the North West 200 practice came as such a shock.

The Fermanagh lad wore a black armband through the weekend as a mark of respect and tribute one of the true heroes of Irish Motorcycle road racing.

It was such contrasting fortune over the last two weekends for Josh as the 'Rookies' race in France was far from a happy hunting ground compared to the fantastic run he had at Mondello Park last week.

Josh was off the pace in first practice, but after making a number of adjustments through qualifying was a lot happier with his race set up even though his bike was one of the slowest through the speed trap. Only 2.4 seconds off pole and in 17th place, Josh was just one second off the top ten and was confident he could run with them come the race. A suggestion to have his bike checked in case there was something wrong with the speed was declined and unfortunately it seems that was to cost him.

Things looked good from the start as young Elliott made up quite a few places in the first few corners, but on the back straight, his bike seemed to loose power and all those he passed just came back past him.

He struggled on trying to make up time in the corners but with his bike starting to jump out of gear he had to retire.

"I am very disappointed," said Josh. " I was confident of running in the top ten, but again my race has ended before it really began.

I hope things change for the better soon."

Mugello, Italy in two weeks time is the next round and hopefully his fortune will change.