Miller upbeat after overcoming “struggle” at Catalunya

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 7 September 2023

After salvaging points from a tough weekend, Jack Miller walked away from Catalunya upbeat as he prepares for the San Marino Grand Prix in Misano this weekend.

Miller finished a dramatic Catalan Grand Prix in eight place, which was his equal best result from the last four Grands Prix.

However, it could have been a whole lot worse for the Australian.

The #43 KTM only featured as high as 10th during practice and missed out on progressing to the second stage of qualifying by one tenth.

This meant Miller started down in 12th and the Sprint began positively getting up to 10th before the race fell away.

The Australian ended up finishing a distant 16th and needed to bounce back on Sunday.

Fortunately Miller took a step forward in the Grand Prix and raced hard to eighth to salvage some points from a tough weekend.

The four-time Grand Prix winner admitted he was relieved to secure some points after “turning the bike upside down” on Saturday night.

“I’m not one for getting too excited for finishing eighth most of the time, but from where we were on Saturday in Catalunya, I’ll definitely take it,” Miller wrote on his website.

“Saturday was just kind of nowhere and a struggle, finishing 16th and so far off the front guys in the Sprint.

“I actually apologised to the mechanics on Sunday because all weekend they’d been working their butts off to try to find me a solution.

“We turned the bike upside down and inside out on Saturday night, made a massive change, and I felt like I wobbled around for the first six laps on Sunday but I felt immediately that I could get a bit more feedback and step by step, push it a little bit more.

“To be much closer to the front in the Grand Prix and – more importantly than that – feeling like I’d made some headway left me in a better mood, and it was something we definitely needed.”

Catalunya arrives after tough races for Miller in Austria, Great Britain and Netherlands where the #43 struggled to maintain pace throughout the race.

Miller put this down to those European circuits being “low grip” surfaces and feels Misano could be a different story which can give Aussie fans reasons to be hopeful this weekend.

“I’m just happy to come out of Catalunya with a good feeling, to be honest,” Miller said.

“We made some headway, probably the first headway we’ve made in a couple of weeks. We’ve made a big step, so hopefully that carries over to Misano.

“There had been a bit of a pattern forming this year – Silverstone, Austria and Barcelona – they’re all tracks that are pretty low on grip, and this one is probably the worst.

“With my riding style, it seems to be one of the things I’ve not found out how to do on the KTM yet, and I just suffer a lot.

“When we get to Misano, that’s usually one of the grippiest tracks on the calendar, and all those problems will be gone. I mean, there’ll be other problems, there always is, but not those ones.”

Miller heads to the San Marino Grand Prix ninth in the championship and has a best result of sixth at Misano in 2021.

Image by Gold & Goose / Red Bull Content Pool

San Marino Grand Prix schedule

Friday, September 8

18.45-19.30 Practice 1

23.00-00.00 Practice

Saturday, September 9

18.10-18.40 Practice 2

18.50-19.30 Qualifying

23.00-23.25 Sprint

Sunday, September 10

22.00-22.50 Grand Prix

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