Jack Miller “embarrassed” by “Bagger lap times” in Austrian MotoGP

Jack Miller was left “embarrassed” after extreme tyre spin caused his final laps of the Austrian MotoGP to be slower than in the Harley-Davidson Baggers race.

After battling electronic issues for much of the weekend, the Pramac Yamaha rider moved ahead of Franco Morbidelli and Pol Espargaro in the early laps of Sunday’s grand prix.

However, the Australian was soon in a spin.

After a best of 1'30.939s on lap 3 of 28, Miller’s pace dramatically faded as he wore down to the ‘base rubber’ on his rear tyre, despite switching to the lowest power map.

Already at the tail of the field by lap 9 of 28, the closing stages saw Miller drop into the 1m 33s, followed by a 1m 34, 1m 35 and 1m 36 in successive laps.

His race ended with laps of 1m 38.929s and 1m 40.225s, both slower than the 1m 38.689s lap record for the Bagger class.

“It's not a day I'm happy or even want to think about, to be honest. Quite embarrassed,” Miller began. “Couldn't do nothing. From about lap 13, 14 onwards, spinning in a straight line, can't do f**k all with it.

“I swapped to [engine] map 2 on lap 3. Was in the group, felt all right. But understood at about lap 13-14 that the tyre was really starting to light up on the straight line more in third-fourth gear.

“So I swapped to map 3, which is meant to be like a back-up map. Hung in there until about 7 to go on the back of Toprak, and then I was on the base rubber.

“Big old strip of base rubber about ‘that’ wide in the centre. Couldn’t open the throttle on the straight. Had to be cautious going into the corners because you're on the base rubber, so the thing's trying to spin around on you, and just circulated to finish the race.

“I struggle a lot when I have this casing, but all of us Yamahas in general struggle a lot, so it's always a bit of a bastard. We've had it twice this year, this casing, in Thailand and here. And both times I finished with a strip of bare ‘that wide everywhere in the centre of it.

“I try to do what I can, pick the bike up. It's almost counterintuitive here because you pick the bike up and that's when it starts spinning when you get to the centre of the tyre.

“Back to the drawing board, I guess. Good thing is, we're back to normal [tyres] in Motegi. Bad thing is, we've got it coming up in Mandalika. But hopefully Mandalika's a track where you're kind of on the side of the tyre a lot more. So we'll wait and see.”

"Bagger times"

Despite the dire performance of his bike in the closing stages, Miller insisted he never considered retiring.

“No, I'm not a guy that parks it. Out there to do a job," he said. "The race isn't over until it's over. You never know if a red flag can fly or whatever, so better off being in it than not being in it.

“Yeah, it's embarrassing doing 1m 38, it's f**king Bagger times. But at the end of the day, here to do a job, and today the job was 21st f**king position.”

Yamaha riders occupied four of the final five places in the grand prix.

Fabio Quartararo was 17th, 30.140s behind KTM race winner Pedro Acosta, with VR46 Ducati rider Morbidelli recovering to 18th after dropping to the back early on.

Alex Rins finished 19th (+34.413s), Toprak Razgatlioglu was 20th (+46.724s) and Miller 21st, 1m 7.530s behind Acosta.

"We could have 40 more horsepower, but..."

Explaining why the Yamaha triggers so much wheel spin, Miller said:

"The other guys are able to put the power to the ground more smoothly coming out of the corner. All weekend we've been having an issue with electronics. It was a little better today, but nothing to write home about.

"We're not able to transfer that weight smoothly, so any sort of sharp input or whatever you have on this tyre, it upsets it, and then it creates spin. And once the thing starts spinning, it doesn't recover, and then the lap time just slowly, but surely gets slower.

"The other guys, especially the Aprilia, are really able to transition the power really well, and then use more power. We could have 40 more horsepower, but we're not going to be able to use it because we're going to spin, especially with this casing."