How a Marc Marquez tow led to a Jack Miller crash in Aragon MotoGP Practice

Jack Miller has been making a habit of dragging the under-developed V4 Yamaha YZR-M1 into Q2 in recent MotoGP races, but a crash in Practice at Aragon denied him the chance on Friday afternoon.

Q2 had been a goal for Miller on Friday, and so – perhaps understandably – he chose Marc Marquez, a seven-time MotoGP winner at MotorLand, to chase for his time attack at the end of Practice.

But he went down in only the second corner, thanks to a lack of temperature in the front tyre.

“I slotted in behind Marc [Marquez], but tipped her into turn two and the front tyre wasn't quite ready to roll, and she said no more,” Jack Miller said after Practice in Aragon.

“You hold on to the elbow as much as you can. You have a few warnings throughout the day but nothing major; you enter 8kph faster with it [front tyre] not quite on temperature just yet [and you crash]. 

“Then jump on the other bike, different set up, quite a bit different, and then an eight-lap tyre from this morning because we don't have enough hard fronts – because the soft is useless. Try to wobble around and do what you can but when you have a brand new soft [compound] rear and an eight-lap-old front it's pushing pretty hard around especially the long corners.

“I felt honestly competitive all day, I felt really strong on the pace, really strong on my performance, I'm happy with where I am at with the bike and the improvements we've made today, just a small mistake at a costly moment and a cost us to go in directly [to Q2].”

Miller added that the biggest deficit for Yamaha at Aragon is in the back straight.

“I mean it's massive,” he said. “When you put fourth gear down that back straight, it's a big difference. 

“But we can't do anything about that, we can only try to fix it where we can. 

“I mean the bike is behaving pretty good in the rest of the corners. I don't feel crazy bad so I'm happy enough.”

Fabio Quartararo was using a new chassis on Friday, one Miller is interested in but will only be able to use himself this weekend if Quartararo discards it.

“It's not a massive change but some steps in the right direction,” the Pramac Yamaha rider said.

“Fabio [Quartararo] is on the new chassis today; if he wasn't happy or if he was happy, depending on the situation, [decides] whether or not I get it this weekend.”