Miller: I just threw a hail mary, had no other option

With conditions he usually stars in, Jack Miller was unable to replicate previous flag-to-flag performances at the Austrian MotoGP following issues aboard his Desmosedici GP-21.

Miller was running inside the top six earlier on, but as the race went on the Australian was unable to hold the pace of the leading riders. 

The Ducati rider instead came under pressure from Brad Binder, Joan Mir and Aleix Espargaro who all made their way past Miller.

This prompted an early gamble to wet tyres - a decision that was two laps too early. However, it was one taken with ‘issues beforehand’ in mind which limited the Ducati rider’s performance. 

Miller said: "I was having some issues beforehand so I just threw a hail mary basically. I came out of turn three on the lap where I came in and I had a look at where the rain was coming from and it looked pretty close. 

"I thought ‘okay I might be able to time this to perfection’, but I had no other option let’s say. 

"I had a big problem with the bike so yeah. Not the couple of races we wanted here in Austria, but anyway, we move forward."

Miller, who has been in his fair share of ‘crazy’ MotoGP races, said Austria wasn’t ‘too bad’ as he was able to push for much of the race even though it was drizzling.   

"I’ve been in a few crazy ones and that one wasn’t too bad. It was drizzling most of the time but we were able to push relatively hard," added Miller.  

"You had to keep some sort of margin, let's say. Especially when forcing the tyre because you just didn’t know where the edge of the grip was."