Suzuki's Joan Mir spꦺent almo𒈔st the entire Andalucia MotoGP 'looking' at the podium.

A debut rostrum remaiꦦned just out of reach, but having crashed out one week earlier, Mir was happy to put points on the board and equ🧸al his career-best finish of fifth place.

"The result was really good," he saiꦆd. "I enjoyed it an♔d was seeing the podium all the race.

"What penalised us 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 was managing the distance with Nakagami [4th] and the podium and catching both Yamahas a little each lap. But then when I was 0.5 behiওnd them I started to have more ﷽problems with the front and was not able to do more.

"Probably if I was a෴lone I could be able to improve my lap times by far. But in the dirty air behind the others I was quite on the limit.

"But happy to finish the race. It'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 Ba𝓰gnaia, black-flagged when his bike began smoking.

"In the first moment I thought it was tꦦhe two Yamahas that were losing this smoke, but then I saw it was Bagnaia," Mir said. "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 will all crash, so for sure a difficult situation."

Also difficult was the roasting Jerez heat. "Physically it was so hard, probably the worst one ever. I was rea♍lly, really exhausted!" Mir said.

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

"I don’t have a lot of good memories from last year at Brno, but I was really fast. So I hope this year to be more comp💟etitive 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 M👍ir, Rins tried the new Suzuki holeshot device 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 T꧙echnical Manager Ken K💃awauchi.