Jack Miller’s San Marino MotoGP came to a premature end, and it wasn’t just the crash that stopped him. A series of technical gremlins after the fall left him stranded and unable to rejoin the race.
The Pramac Yamaha rider went down at Turn 8 on lap 3 while battling Johann Zarco. He had been fighting his way into the points and was pushing hard to make up positions early on.
“Not a real long day for me,” Miller said after the race. “I got away to a decent start, made some good moves on the first lap, had a dive bomb on Johann in Turn 1. I felt like I had good pace and was trying to make up the moves while you can early doors because once you get that single file it becomes very difficult, especially for us around here, to try and make an overtake. So, I had a lunge at him at Turn 1, he was able to kind of leave the brakes and on the change of direction come back, and then I was just trying to eye up a spot over the next lap basically. Got to Turn 8, myself, Fabio [Quartararo], him and myself kind of all braked real late. It was one after the other, I was just a little bit wider. We were all a little bit off-line. I was just a little bit wider and I tried to force it a little bit more than the other boys and the front gave up.”
The crash didn’t immediately end his race, but it triggered an electronic glitch and then a clutch problem that prevented him from restarting. “I picked the bike up relatively quick,” Miller explained. “I had a TC error just from riding on the gravel. I tried to turn the bike off and restart it just to clear the error, but once I turned the bike off the clutch was slipping and it wouldn't actually fire. So, that was a bit of a pain in the arse. But anyway, the damage was done at the crash at Turn 8.”
Miller was frustrated because he felt the bike had made progress over the weekend. “Not the easiest of weekends to say the least, but we never stopped trying,” he said. “Even up to today, I felt like today was the best bike we rode all weekend. We chased our arse all weekend in terms of setup, changing headstock angle last night, and then from warm up to race we went a little longer with the bike and a little bit softer. We're just trying to play catch up basically and get to something that is A, competitive; and B, I'm comfortable with riding. Like I said, I feel like in the race it felt like the best bike I rode all weekend, I just didn't get to do bugger all on it.”
Despite the disappointment, Miller remains optimistic that the progress made at Misano can be a stepping stone for the upcoming rounds. “We have to keep working and iron out the small details. I believe this team can bounce back,” he concluded.
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