Miller: Marquez pace depressing but I feel confident

Jack Miller has described Marc Marquez’s practice pace as “kind of depressing” but remains confident he can join the fight at the front at the British MotoGP.

The Australian rider bolted onto the front row with third place in qualifying for Pramac Ducati thanks to an impressive final lap in qualifying leaving him only behind pole position record-holder Marquez and just 0.006s off Valentino Rossi who claimed second place.

Switching his focus to race pace, Miller tips both Marquez and the Yamaha riders to pose his biggest threat in the 20-lap Silverstone race while he admits the reigning MotoGP world champion’s FP4 pace was a major concern.

With a fresh hard rear tyre, Marquez notched up five consecutive laps inside the 1m 59s bracket while only Petronas Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo was able to get within touching distance thanks to his four consecutive 1m 59s laps in the same session using a fresh hard rear tyre.

Miller, who ended FP4 down in 12^th place having stuck with new hard front and rear tyres for the session after his session trucated by a technical issue, predicts the British MotoGP to be a race decided on tyre conservation and strategy but warns about Marquez’s perceived pace.

“I used the hard front tyre in FP4. Feels all right, it’s not my favourite tyre, but looks like we’ll end up using that, and the hard rear,” Miller said. “The track is pretty brutal on the tyres. I think the majority of the grid from what I gather will be on hard.

“Unless Marquez wants to bolt in the first couple laps, I think we’ll all be conserving tyres towards the end of the race and see what we can do. I went out and put in a decent run with what little time I had in FP4, and I feel quite confident.

“The Yamahas are looking strong. Looking at Marc’s pace from FP4 when he put the new hard one and went and did, like, six 59’s in a row it’s kind of depressing.”

Miller was forced to use his second bike, with the older chassis, in qualifying following technical issues with his first bike that were initially sustained in FP3 before a problem stalled his start to FP4.

“I hopped on the number two bike which was the older chassis, and it seemed to work pretty well,” Miller said. “I hadn’t ridden it since the Brno test, so I was a little bit hesitant towards getting on it and going straight out and doing a lap time, but it worked pretty good.”