After a very challenging Qatar GP, Jack Miller had an encouraging Friday at the MotoGP Portuguese Grand Prix in Portimão. The Red Bull KTM rider was consistently among the fastest yesterday and finished the afternoon session with the second-best time, just 0.118s behind Enea Bastianini (Ducati).
The Australian noted that he found his bike working well, although he acknowledged there is room for improvement:‘It was a good day obviously. It’s always nice getting back to Portimão. The conditions in the morning were not what we expected with the rain overnight. It was dirty out there. Fortunately it cleaned up pretty good and the times were pretty fast in the afternoon. The bike is working well, as it has done all year, and it’s just nice to show up and have a crack. I’m looking forward to Saturday. Obviously there are a few areas where we can still try to improve, both on the hard tyre and obviously on the soft as well. It’s nice to be straight into the Q2, that’s the first job of the weekend done. And I’m looking forward to what Saturday holds’.
Regarding the suitability of the KTM RC16 to the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Miller commented:‘The old KTM maybe was more manoueuvrable. Obviously all the bikes now on the grid have kind gone to that longer wheel base. But in sum, our bike does suit this track. For example from turn 1 to 3 you can kind of pitch the thing sideways and get it to stop on a dime piece, and follow the white line around the inside, which probably used to be pretty hard on the Ducati. So it is a track that suits our bike. But Qatar suited our bike as well, I didn’t feel terrible; I just wasn’t able to put it together’.
When asked about the chances of getting on the podium in Portimão, #43 showed confidence: ‘Obviously. I think that every week, because otherwise I wouldn’t show up. But obviously it seems more realistic this week. I felt like that already after the test in Qatar. I felt extremely shit after the race in Qatar, but that’s a different story. We have a great package and I think we just need the stars to align a little bit to show that we can do a good job’.