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

Fifth and w💝ithin one-second of a debut podium in the first Spanish race, the Petr💦onas Yamaha rider looked even stronger in this weekend's second outing.

Riding the A-Spec M1, the only Yamaha with💧out the new holeshot device, Morbidelli lost a position for seventh on the opening lap, but then climbed steadily u𒅌p the order, overtaking Maverick Vinales for fourth on lap 11 of 25.

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

It was the 168澳洲🍸幸运5官方开奖结果历史:third such failure for Yamaꦫha so far this season.

Without it, Petronas team principal Razlan Razali believes Morbidelli not only had a strong chance of the podium but of completing a perfect one-two behind victorio�๊�us 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 sorry for him because he was st🥂rong all weekend and deserved a good result," Razali said.

🍌After the race, Morbidelli didn’t want to dwell 🅰on what might have been.

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

"These two races I have to say I've stepped u✨p my game. I'm mꦇuch faster than last year.

"I was feeling very good, very at ease and comfortable with the bike, fighting my way back to the top. I m🥀ade a small mistake behind Vale bu꧅t 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 out 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 improved༒ compared to last weekend.

"So I just have to be happy because I feel strong and feel I can bring that als🔜o in other races."

The Italian i꧙nsists he won't be worrying about further engine 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 that at best🐠.

"About the bi൩ke, 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 last 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 far. I was able to put in really fast laps in late mom༒ents of the race.

"So I'll take this great thing and try to bring it to Brno, Austria and until the finish of the cha🌠mpionship… until the finish of my career!"

Commenting on the scorching heat this weekend, which saw air temperatures of 36 degrees 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 on to finish second and Ro🌜ssi third, after Francesco Bagnaia was b✱lack-flagged for a late engine problem on his Ducati.