Miller: Lorenzo confident with 'collapsing' front

After Jorge Lorenzo's second Ducati MotoGP victory in as many races, at Catalunya on Sunday, his fellow Desmosedici riders are sure to be pouring through the data to try and find out where the Spaniard is gaining.

The braking area on the slippery Barcelona circuit was soon identified by team-mate Andrea Dovizioso, straight after the race.

But while Dovi suspected Lorenzo was benefitting from less rear-wheel slides in the braking zone, Pramac's Jack Miller believes it was the way Lorenzo kept confidence in the 'collapsing' soft front tyre that held the key.

"[Lorenzo] wasn't too much wheels-in-line. He was sliding into turn one a little bit more than me yesterday," Miller explained at Monday's official post-race test, which Lorenzo and Dovizioso did not attend.

"It was just the way [Lorenzo] was adapting to the [soft front tyre], because you couldn’t really use the medium and the hard tyre too well.

"But he was using the [soft] and letting it collapse the whole way and basically had confidence with it collapsing.

"Whereas the rest of us - or myself in particular - were not squishing the tyre all the way. Because I'm used to when you squish it, normally you're going to end in the air.

"So we've been working on that today and I think it's helped us with the outright race pace."

Asked to confirm when the 'collapsing' feeling from the soft front tyre occurs, the Australian replied:

"Straight braking. It just goes almost flat and you have a feeling like the tyre is deforming under you. You feel the handlebars moving a little bit. But it's just something you have to ride through. It's strange!"

Miller, who retired with technical problems in the race, had set the eighth fastest lap time when the team packed up just after lunch.

"We tried to work on myself and a few different things for the bike. But we're on last year's bike, so there's not much development.

"Here was a good place to test because we struggled, but we got quicker and quicker as the weekend went on. Missing the [private] test before the grand prix probably didn’t help us."

The next event will be the Dutch TT at Assen, where Miller took his MotoGP win in 2016.