Miller finds pace at Phillip Island ‘to take it to them’

Jack Miller has hailed a productive Friday practice ahead of his home round at Phillip Island and feels optimistic he’ll have the pace across the full race distance to challenge for the podium for Pramac Ducati.

The Australian rider ended the dry FP2 in fifth place after impressing with second place in the wet and cold FP1 despite ramping up his workload by trying out all three rear tyre compounds in the afternoon session while continually tweaking his GP19’s setup.

Looking to find consistency race pace for this weekend’s Australian MotoGP, Miller feels confident he can be part of the front-running group in both wet and dry conditions as the weather forecast remains uncertain following a mixed Friday.

“A good day, good pace and I feel good on an old engine so it will be interesting to see what we can do tomorrow,” Miller said. “Hopefully it pisses down in the morning and then it is nice and dry for qualifying so I don’t have to worry about doing a qualifying run in FP3.

“The last couple of years we’ve been able to lead and be fighting with the front guys for the majority of the race but this year it actually feels like we will be able to take it to them for the full race distance. I hope it is like that come Sunday.

“I managed to test a few different things, wet settings were alright this morning to start off, I had to soften it up a little bit more especially on the right side when it was slippery.

“This afternoon I managed to try all three compounds of the rear tyre and put a second soft in just to make sure we were in that top 10 for tomorrow as it looks like FP3 might be a little bit wet. But for the rest I am feeling good. We’ve got a couple of different settings here and there.

“In the Michelin test I was able to swap the bike around a bit which is why we exited just a little bit late as we had to swap a thing in the pivot to try to gain some stability. So in that aspect it was good.”

Having demonstrated promising pace at the first two races of the Asian tour, Miller has failed to convert it into strong results after accidentally hitting the kill switch on his Pramac Ducati on the starting grid in Thailand before a suspected mechanical issue restrained his charge in Japan.

Since stepping up to the premier class in 2015, Miller’s best results at his home round remain a pair of seventh places achieved in 2017 and 2018.