Miller shakes off fall to warn “more up my sleeve”

Jack Miller’s late time attack saw him jump to third place on the final timesheet on the second day of the Sepang MotoGP test despite a painful fall earlier in the day and is confident of “a lot more up my sleeve” with the Pramac Ducati GP19.

With last year’s team-mate Danilo Petrucci stepping up to the factory Ducati squad this season, Miller continues to get to grips with Pramac’s factory-specification GP19 as its lead rider.

Miller was one of a number of riders to target a late fast lap with temperatures cooling off in the late afternoon to leap to third fastest having completed 49 laps for the day.

Miller’s progress was stalled by a crash, triggered while finding the limit with his setup on the GP19, and feels the potential of the bike means more performance will come after he finds cures to edge grip stability under acceleration.

“I had to adjust a few things as we were on the limit a little bit on the braking zone, hence the two crashes, in the exact same corner and same style,” Miller said “We just adjusted it, played around with the setting. We tried opening the angle and we tried closing the angle and finally we ended up going with a stiffer spring with less pre-load and it seemed to work out for us.

“The rest the bike is working really well. I’m still not 100% comfortable with it, I think the bike has got a lot more potential than we have got out of it so far, even on the last corner on my flying lap I had a moment coming out of the seat which then pumped all the way down the front straight so it cut quite a lot of power. I know I have got a lot more up my sleeve.

“One of my biggest dramas at the minute is trying to get it driving off the edge. I create quite a bit of spin there and the bike gets unsettled, but we gain the grip once it is stood up, it is just as it goes along the edge it is a bit of a handful.

The Australian is also still feeling the effects on a motocross crash suffered during pre-season training with Chad Reed but isn’t concern about any lasting problems.

“I already had a bloody hematoma on my leg coming into the test, a big old hematoma on my thigh but the guys at Clinica Mobile have been working on it,” he said. “I went over the bars when I crashed and I was just straight up and down and locked the front so I fell straight on top of it.

“It was a bit stiff, especially in the left-hand corners. I feel like I can’t really get off the bike too much but I’m working with the guys now to get it sorted.”

Miller is also working with two different specification of Ducati chassis, a new version alongside the one he used at the post-season tests in November, but feels the variations between the two is minimal and not a great performance alter.

“Not much difference between the two to be honest,” he said. “I can’t even say one is better than the other and I would quite happily jump back on the other one and I would be able to do the same time. The chassis difference very small.”