The two unusual Yamaha problems that ended Jack Miller’s Misano MotoGP

Jack Miller’s retirement from the Misano MotoGP came not as a direct result of his crash, but because of a sequence of problems afterwards.

Miller was fighting his way into the points in the early stages of the race when he crashed out at turn eight.

Turn eight would go on to claim Johann Zarco at the end of the MotoGP race, and it was the Frenchman Miller was battling when he went down on lap three.

“Not a real long day for me,” said Jack Miller after the San Marino race.

“I got away to a decent start, made some good moves on the first lap, had a dive bomb on Johann [Zarco] in turn one. 

“I felt like I had good pace and was trying to make up the moves while you can early doors because once you get that single file it becomes very difficult, especially for us around here, to try and make an overtake. 

“So, I had a lunge at him at turn one, he was able to kind of leave the brakes and on the change of direction come back, and then I was just trying to eye up a spot over the next lap basically. 

“Got to turn eight, myself, Fabio [Quartararo], him and myself kind of all braked real late. 

“It was one after the other, I was just a little bit wider. We were all a little bit off-line. 

“I was just a little bit wider and I tried to force it a little bit more than the other boys and the front gave up.”

Miller’s crash didn’t rule him out on the spot, but it resulted in an electronics glitch followed by a clutch problem that meant he couldn’t rejoin.

“I picked the bike up relatively quick,” the Pramac Yamaha rider said.

“I had a TC error just from riding on the gravel. I tried to turn the bike off and restart it just to clear the error, but once I turned the bike off the clutch was slipping and it wouldn't actually fire. 

“So, that was a bit of a pain in the arse. But anyway, the damage was done at the crash at turn eight.”

Miller was frustrated by the crash because he felt the bike had progressed to its best point of the weekend by the time the race came around.

“Not the easiest of weekends to say the least, but we never stopped trying,” he said.

“Even up to today, I felt like today was the best bike we rode all weekend. We chased our arse all weekend in terms of setup, changing headstock angle last night, and then from warm up to race we went a little longer with the bike and a little bit softer. 

“We're just trying to play catch up basically and get to something that is A, competitive; and B, I'm comfortable with riding. 

“Like I said, I feel like in the race it felt like the best bike I rode all weekend, I just didn't get to do bugger all on it.”