He may not have a trophy to show for it, but the season-opening Jerez MotoGP races have proven to Franco Morbidelli that🌞 he has 'stepped up his game' and is now a 'much faster' and 'more consistent' rider.

Fifth and within one-second of a debut podium in the first Spanish race, the Petronas Y🍌amaha rider looked even stronger in this weekend's second outi🦹ng.

Riding the A-Spec🔴 M1, the only Yamaha without the new holeshot devꦜice, Morbidelli lost a position for seventh on the opening lap, but then climbed steadily up the order, overtaking Maverick Vinales for fourth on lap 11 of 25.

Morbidelli spent the next five laps sandwiched between the F𝓡actory Yamahas of Vinales and Valentino Rossi, but heartbreak was to follow when his&n꧒bsp;engine lost power on the home straight on lap 16.

It was the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖ဣ结果历史:third such failure for Yamaha so faജr this season.

Without it, Petronas team principal Razlan Razali believes Morbidelli not only had a strong chance of the podium but of compl𝔉eting a perfect one-two behind victorious team-mate Fabio Quartararo.

"It’s very unfortunate for Franky as I think it could have been a one-two for us today, but we need to see what the problem was. We feel so sorr🥂y for him because he was strong all weekend and deserved a good result," Razali said.

After the race, Mor𒅌bidelli didn’t want to dwell o✨n what might have been.

"I'm very happy about my level of riding," he said. "I saw that I imp🍌roved in testing in Sepang and Qatar, but I wasn't sure if I could match that level in the races.

"These two races I have to say𓆏 I've stepped up my game. I'm much faster than last year.

"I was feeling very good, very at ease and comfortab♓le with the bike, fighting my way back tꦯo the top. I made a small mistake behind Vale but I was able to recover quite fast and I was ready for the final rush of the race. But unfortunately a technical problem stopped me.

"It came out of the blue♑. The bike just stopped and we don’t know why. But it came o𝐆ut of the blue. It can happen in racing. Now we've got to take the positives from this weekend which was the speed we had the in the race and the consistency actually we had in the race was impressive.

"My starting position is not on-point yet but we ꦜimproved compared to las🥀t weekend.

"So I just have to be happy because I feel strong 𒊎and feel I ꦺcan bring that also in other races."

The Italian insists he won't be worrying about further enginꦿe reliability issues.

"I just worry about the🍃 things I can control. My job is to jump on the bike and give the maximum and be a professional on and outside the track. I try to ൩that at best.

"About the bike, there are engineers, mechanics, technicians working on that. So I cannot worry about that. I can only worry about my riding and how to set-up the bike. And I'm actually quite happy about that because I was really fast lastꦯ race and this one as well.

"I was feeling great, I was feeling strong, I was going towards the podium, towards the first position even though it was f💛ar. I was able to put in really fast laps in late moments of the race.

"So I'll take this great thing an🔥d try to bring it to Brno, Austria and until the finish of the championship… until the finish of my career!"

Commenting on the scorching heat this weekend, which saw air temperatures of 36 de🔴g𝔍rees and a track temp of 59 degrees during the race, Morbidelli said: "Jerez is always a tough race, with the heat. But this was Jerez on steroids! Because it was even hotter than normal."

Vinales went onಌ to finish second and Rossi third, after 🧜Francesco Bagnaia was black-flagged for a late engine problem on his Ducati.