Mir incident distracts Miller, smoke signals end race
A series of incidents eventually resulted in Jack Miller being shown the black-and-orange flag and thus forced to pull out of the Dutch MotoGP race due to a suspected technical problem.
The Australian dropped from sixth to eighth place during an early tussle with Joan Mir, the reigning world champion later apologising for a block pass.
"Jack will be angry. Because again, the overtake, it was a block pass," said Mir, who previously clashed with Miller in Qatar. "I don’t like to make these overtakes, but he is fast on the straight. He brakes hard and it’s difficult."
But it wasn't that particular pass by Mir which triggered Miller's downfall, but a later move by the Suzuki rider on Takaaki Nakagami.
"I felt good, I was in my rhythm and the group in front, Pecco and those guys, were coming back towards me and Miguel," said Miller. "And then Mir was doing one of his passes at Turn 5, making contact with Taka, so I braked a bit earlier in case somebody happened to fall off.
"Normally I would be trail-braking right to the apex there, putting some load on the front tyre. Since I released the brakes a little earlier, obviously I didn't have enough load on the front tyre and just fell over.
"A really shit, nothing, crash but it cost us quite dearly. So really pissed off at myself for that sort of mistake. I guess my mind was focussed on what to do, reading the situation in front of me, and that was enough."
While frustrating, the low-speed tip-off shouldn't have meant the end of Miller's race.
However, some smoke from his Ducati then resulted in Miller being given the black-and-orange flag.
"It was a nothing first gear crash. Literally my handlebars weren't even bent. I picked the bike up and got going again, but we have a system basically that if the bike is on its side, there's an overflow due to more oil pumping around in a certain part of the engine.
"When that overflow fills up, it will dump a little bit of [oil] into the exhaust. Burn it off basically. They [Race Direction] said they saw smoke coming out of the exhaust so black or 'meatball' flag I think they call it.
"It was nothing. I did what I could. I looked at the bike and knew the bike was fine. As soon as you see that [flag] you check if there is any oil pissing out of it or something, but there wasn't."
Miller's second DNF of the season means the Jerez and Le Mans winner has now slipped 56-points from Quartararo for fifth in the world championship. Team-mate Bagnaia went on to finish as the top Ducati, in sixth place, just behind Oliveira's KTM.
