Miller: There was no way Bautista was going to stop
Jack Miller lamented the riding from some of his colleagues during the MotoGP encounter at Jerez, which was limited to just six laps after Alvaro Bautista collected his Honda RC213V at turn one.
Starting from tenth position and brimming with confidence after strong showings in free practice and qualifying, Miller found himself under siege in the opening exchanges, as riders attacked him from a variety of angles.
Eventually, it was Bautista that took him down when he tucked the front of his Aspar Ducati while moving under Miller that ended both riders' races, a move that the Australian criticised soon after.
"There was no way he was going to stop the bike for turn one," he said. While Bautista admitted his mistake, he insisted he had simply made a mistake while attempting to "overtake him correctly."
"Not a great day at all," began Miller. "I had great confidence all weekend, had a good start to the race but then just caught up in s**t basically. I lost so much time in the first two or three laps just with people lunging from six kilometres back and then they don't even make the corner. They end up off the end of the track.
"The problem is here, you have this asphalt run-off so they can still turn, come back and do it again two laps later. So it was a pain in arse with that in the first three laps and then I was closing the gap to Dovizioso and then it happened again with Petrucci, he did the same thing but he was able to get past.
"Then me and him were going and then Bautista tried the same thing at turn one and took me out with him. I mean there was no way he was going to stop the bike for turn one, he came in hot, I was already halfway into the corner and then he lost the front and cleaned me out."
Jack Miller's punishment for shoving Alvaro Bautista, after the Spaniard fell and took down the Australian in the #SpanishGP #MotoGP pic.twitter.com/TG59PWNgyM-- Crash.net MotoGP (@crash_motogp) May 7, 2017
That was a mistake, he said, but explained his frustration was so high at what had gone before, his anger boiled over. "I pushed him, it's not the right thing to do. It was just the frustration because the first five laps I had so many people run me wide...."
Offering his version of events, Bautista said, "For the crash I was riding a little bit faster than the guys in front of me. When I arrived at Jack I was close on the straight so I tried to pass him into turn one.
"On the straight I was alongside him but I was on the inside so I had to have a bit more lean angle and with the track being warmer today it was more difficult to hold that line and unfortunately I lost the front and pushed him down.
"I'm sorry for him but it wasn't a mistake from me that caused it, I was trying to overtake him correctly. I can understand how Jack felt, because when you crash and it's not your fault you will be angry, but I didn't expect him to kick my bike. I didn't like that from him.
"It was normal that he was angry from the situation and afterwards he came to my box and said that he thought that my overtake was similar to other riders earlier in the race where they came from a long way behind. Mine wasn't like that and it was mostly due to the difficult track conditions that I couldn't overtake him properly.
"When he came to the box he was very angry but once I explained to him how I was trying to overtake him correctly and that I wasn't doing anything crazy he understood. Once he knew this he was much calmer."
