Jack Miller did not have an easy Saturday at the French MotoGP Grand Prix. The rider finished in eighth place to score two points, managing to improve from his grid position.
About the qualifying session that fell short of his expectations by finishing in 11th, the Red Bull KTM man stated: ‘The qualifying didn’t go as planned, I simply couldn’t put a lap together. I did everything I could. I was getting a lot of warnings […]. On the lap before I crashed, I had Pedro, I lost the front exactly at the same point. As I started to get back on track, Pedro and I almost touched. He went on the inside. I was just trying to avoid the accident and it was one of those situations. And then I tried to attack again and did exactly the same thing‘.
Despite a good start, Miller faced some difficulties in the early laps, as he revealed: ‘I had a good start. I was a bit too soft in turn three. I had a good start and that made me gain a lot of ground and I thought: “Oh, the front device still hasn’t deactivated”. I thought of just holding the position, trying not to attack – you can’t with these wild ones. You either have to be attacking, or you are attacked. So, I was a bit hit in turn three, and lost some of the ground I had gained. But I was able to settle. I lacked some speed in the early stages as the rear tire took a long time to start working. The riders around me were simply able to get it working early: turns 6, 7, 8, even in the chicane. And I was really just being careful to try to activate it. And then it improved as the race went on‘.
The situation improved for the Australian in the last few laps, but he admitted that there is room for improvement at the beginning: ‘I felt strong in the last laps, so that’s a positive. We will only understand why we had some difficulties in the initial phase of the race because that’s when you can really gain or lose positions’.
