Miller sets “surprising” scorching practice pace

The Jack Miller and KTM combination has rocketed off to a scorching start with the Aussie setting record-breaking pace to top the first Friday of MotoGP 2023.

Despite a troubled testing campaign, Miller was at home on his KTM machine to smash a new lap record of the Algarve International Circuit to be the pacesetter of an FP2 session filled with crashes.

The Australian was on fire through the final sector to surge “from nowhere” to P1 during the frantic dying moments of the day with a 1:37.709.

Miller was just 0.037s ahead of Aprilla’s Maverick Vinales, while reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia was third.

The #43 Aussie improved by almost two seconds to charge to the top and could not hide his astonishment.

“To be honest, I’m as surprised as you guys, especially at the time,” Miller told Autosport. 

“I am not surprised by the improvements, but of the time. I wasn’t expecting a 1m37.7s but, hey, I will take it.

“We’ve been working extremely hard, and when I say ‘we’ I mean mainly the engineers. I’ve done f**k all in Australia for the last four months. They’ve listened to everything I’ve said and my comments and my wishes and my demands.

“We have made a massive step and session by session I feel like I can make this bike my own and start to exploit the strong points of the KTM.

“We will see what we can do tomorrow in the Q2. My objective today was to be in the top 10 and we were able to do that by a considerable margin. Then the sprint race will be full attack.”

The top five was completed by the satellite Ducati’s of Luca Marini and Jorge Martin, who all went faster than the previous lap record.

Fabio Quartararo flew the flag for Yamaha sitting sixth as his teammate Franco Morbidelli could only manage P20.

Other riders to secure the all-important top 10 berths were Johann Zarco, Marco Bezzecchi, Aleix Espargaro and Enea Bastianini.

There was not a single Honda in the top 10 with Marc Marquez down in 14th, seven tenths of Miller’s benchmark in FP2.

In his first session on a Gresini Ducati, Alex Marquez drew first blood by topping FP1 by just 0.045s over Bagnaia.

But the action was in a dramatic final session, which took a while to come to life due to a technical issue, but provided plenty of talking points as many big names suffered falls and the pace improved by more than a second.

Friday’s running was marred by a violent crash for Pol Espargaro, who has been airlifted to hospital for checks on his back and neck.

The Spaniard was launched skyward from his Tech3 KTM before crashing into the barriers at Turn 10.

Many other riders also suffered falls, but fortunately were unharmed.

This list included Honda superstar Marc Marquez, who slipped into the gravel whilst chasing Quartataro. 

Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira finished 17th and 19th respectively after also crashing. 

The exciting day of practice sets the scene for a historic Saturday at Portimao, which features the first ever MotoGP sprint race.

Before then qualifying takes place at 21:50 AEDT while the sprint commences at 02.00.

FP2 Results

1.Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) – 1:37.746

2. Maverick Viñales (Aprilia Racing) + 0.037

3. Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) + 0.147

4. Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Racing Team) + 0.190

5. Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Racing) + 0.282

6. Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP™) + 0.306

7. Johann Zarco (Prima Pramac Racing) + 0.403

8. Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing) + 0.449

9. Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing) + 0.544

10. Enea Bastiaini (Ducati Lenovo Team) + 0.547

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