'Try and avoid the bike' - Miller, Petrucci near miss

Alma Pramac Ducati team-mates Jack Miller and Danilo Petrucci had a Friday night scare when they fell moments apart, at the same corner, during MotoGP testing in Qatar.

Miller was the first to go down, at Turn 1:

"I was testing a different bike geometry. I was struggling on braking already, but that was a really weird spot," explained the Australian.

"The problem was I crashed, then [Petrucci] crashed. The black lines were in the same spot and there wasn't much angle. I was going pretty bloody quick when I lost the front, my suit was destroyed and I was lucky to get away with all my skin left.

"By the time I stopped sliding and stood up, I looked back at the track and I just saw him and thought, 'oh shit, try and avoid the bike'.

"I don't really know what happened, it was quite strange for us both to crash like that.

"He was too far away for it to be that he got scared or distracted by my fall."

Petrucci confirmed he hadn't been aware that his team-mate was down until his own accident.

"It was a strange crash because at Turn 1 I braked like the previous lap, the same point, same speed, but I crashed… And when I crashed I saw a man standing in the gravel. It was my team-mate," said the Italian, who rides a GP18 while Miller has the GP17.

"We crashed in the same way in the same point. I crashed five seconds later than him. We still don’t know what happened. It was a scary moment, but more for Jack because I arrived at full speed, crashing…"

After a delay for repairs Petrucci went on to set the eighth fastest lap (+0.6s), using the medium tyres rather than soft. But the Friday night scares were not over for Italian…

"I stayed in the pits for two hours but when I went back to the track I have been very quick from the beginning and set my best lap time with a medium front and medium rear. "Then I tried the new fairing but only one run.

"Some positive things, but we lose all the advantage we had on the straight. Here it's quite easy for us to stay in front in the straight. We have to decide which fairing to homologate [for the first race] and I think regarding me I will use the standard one.

"Then I decided to push with a soft tyre on the rear but we had a problem with the clutch.

"I went on track again and Rabat crashed in front of me. Then I was pushing again trying to reach Luthi and in Turn 9 he lost the front and stayed in the middle of the track and I almost hit him on the back.

"So I said, 'okay, we already did some damage for today, it's enough!' But I'm quite happy even if I only did a few laps."

Miller was one place behind Petrucci on the timesheets, in ninth.