Miller: Back to the drawing board

Disappointed to DNF so close to the finish, Jack Miller nonetheless shrugged off the circumstances of his late-race clash with Aleix Espargaro at the Spanish MotoGP.

A lowly 15th in qualifying, the Pramac Ducati rider was forced to go on a flat-out attack in the early laps.

But it burned up the lifespan of his hard-rear Michelin and Miller began plummeting from eighth in the closing stages.

The Australian's race then came to an abrupt end when he tried to cut back underneath Aleix Espargaro after the Aprilia rider out-braked him into the final turn. The pair clashed as the Spaniard returned to the inside line, leaving Miller down and out.

"You go and do 23 laps, it's not nice to lay it over," Miller said. "But mostly it was my fault. When you start going backwards like that people are just firing it at you left, right and centre.

"As Aleix was braking to try and pass me had a bit of a moment, ran a little wide and I'm only human, I'm going to try and hold my inside line. This time it didn't work, so back to the drawing board."

But it was the early laps that had left Miller a sitting duck.

"I had to use three laps [worth] of tyre in the first lap trying to pass people. Our normal race plan is to start on a map that I only put on three laps into the race, simply because I needed my qualifying map for the first three laps with a lot of power to be able to make moves on people.

"It worked in that we were right in there fighting for the podium for a lot of the race, but then it didn't work at the end. I ran out of front tyre, then I ran out of rear tyre, all on the right side really. I just killed the tyres and then I was a sitting duck.

"That's kind of what happens when you push from the beginning. These tyres like to be worked into. They don't really like to go from 0 to 100. If you can gradually build over three laps, the end result is a lot better than going out and going ballistic on them straight away.

"That's how it was today though.

"So we've got a little bit more work to do tomorrow [at the test] and hopefully we will be able to find a few little things. Then it's Le Mans, which is one of my favourite tracks and where I’ve always gone well."

Miller, who took his first Ducati podium at COTA, is seventh in the world championship.