Suzuki's Joan Mir spent almost the ent🌊ire A♎ndalucia MotoGP 'looking' at the podium.

A debut rostrum remained just out of reach, but having crashed out oneꦆ week earlier, Mir was happy to put points on the board and equal his career-best finish of fifth place.

"The result was really good," he said. "I enjoyed it and was seeing💙 the po൲dium all the race.

"What penalised u🥂s a little bit was that last weekend no Suzuki finished the race and we didn't any information about the tyres, we didn't know the pressures and I was quite struggling with the front.

"And I w🍎as managing the distance with Nakagami [4th] and the podium and ca𒁏tching both Yamahas a little each lap. But then when I was 0.5 behind them I started to have more problems with the front and was not able to do more.

"Probably if I was alone I could be able to improve my lap times by far. But in the dirty air behind the o꧑thersᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ I was quite on the limit.

"B꧂ut happy to finish the race. Itꦗ's what I needed because I didn't want to go home without a good result. I'm conscious that two riders broke their engines in front of us, so it's not a full fifth position, but anyway I'm happy."

One of those to retire ahead of Mir was Pramac Ducati's Francesco Bagnaia, black-f🅷lagged when his bike began smoking.

"In the first moment I thought it was the two Yamahas that were losing this smoke, but then I saw it was Bagnaia," Mir said. ൩"In my case it was not difficult to ride in. But it was a bit dangerous because I thought if the engine is broken, we wil🃏l all crash, so for sure a difficult situation."

Also difficult was the roasting Jerez heat. "Physically it was so hard, probably the worst 𓄧one ever. I was really, reall♛y exhausted!" Mir said.

Next up will be the Czech Republic round, where Mir was fast as🌠 a rookie one year ago, only to be taken out of the race and badly𓃲 injured in the Monday test.

"I don’t have a💎 lot of good memories from last year at Brno, but I was reall🥀y fast. So I hope this year to be more competitive and that's it," he said.

Team-mate Alex Rins, who missed the opening Jerez race due to a dislocated shoulder, finished in tenth place. Unlike Mir, Rins tried the new Suzuki holeshot d🎉evice in the race.

"Next we’ll go to Brno, where we’ll try for the podium with both our riders. I’m looking forward to it," said Technical Manage🌸r Ken Kawauchi.