Miller happy with ‘unreal’ season despite Assen crash
Jack Miller enters the summer break happy after an ‘unreal’ first eight rounds of the 2023 MotoGP world championship.
Miller sits seventh in the standings after a difficult Dutch TT where he started strong, but struggled to replicate his Friday pace as the weekend unfolded.
After being third fastest in practice, the KTM rider experienced a “small vibration” issue in qualifying and had to deal with a P12 starting spot.
The Aussie struggled to make progress in the Sprint, finishing 11th, but was on fire at the start of his 200th Grand Prix.
Miller climbed up four spots on the opening lap alone until disaster struck on the first corner of the second lap.
Jack Miller leads Takaai Nakagami at Assen. Image: Gold and Goose
“I mean, that is not exactly the way I wanted to celebrate my 200th Grand Prix start. I wanted more than one lap!” Miller wrote on his website.
“I got a decent start and put the move on ‘Vinny’ (Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales) into the last corner, and he came back at me at Turn 1.
“I thought he was going wide, so I tried to cut back under, but asked a little bit too much of the front-end and away she went.
“I held a couple of degrees more lean angle at the apex to square it up and was just trying to slice and dice at that point in time, and it wasn’t to be.”
What makes the crash even more frustrating for “Funky” Miller is his belief that a special result could have been possible.
He feels KTM had “found something” on race day morning which was a source of optimism after the “disaster” that was Saturday.
Jack Miller celebrates his first podium of the season at Jerez. Photo by Gold and Goose / LAT Images
Reflecting on the opening eight races of the season, Miller was extremely upbeat.
How the Australian would transition from reigning world champions Ducati to KTM was unknown, but they have shown enough flashes of brilliance to create excitement for the road ahead.
His 2023 season has been an up and down one, but there have been big highs such as Saturday and Sunday podiums at Jerez, plus a further Sprint trophy in Germany.
Miller also displayed strong pace at Texas and France before incidents got in the way.
The 28-year-old said he feels KTM has proven a lot of critics wrong during a strong start to the season where it has established itself as the second fastest bike behind the all-conquering Ducati.
Jack Miller soaks up the atmosphere on the Spanish podium.
“It’s been an unreal start to my time here at KTM,” Miller said.
“We’ve had a bike fighting there every weekend, whether that’s myself, Brad or even (GasGas rider) Augusto (Fernandez).
“I’ve had two sprint race podiums and a main race podium and we’ve been challenging the majority of the time. We definitely can be very happy with what the bike is doing, and it feels like KTM is definitely on the right path.
“If you’d said last year when I signed for KTM that we would be in this position now, the majority of people would have probably been laughing if you’d said that we’d be the only ones at this point really challenging the Ducatis.
Jack Miller leads the German Grand Prix Sprint at Sachsenring, Photo by Alexander Trienitz / LAT Images
“But we’re working extremely hard and keeping the right mindset and attitude.”
MotoGP takes a break before returning at Silverstone on August 4-6.
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