Thriller from Miller: How did he get second in qualifying?

Once again, Jack Miller (Pramac Racing) wore his heart on his sleeve in a bold move from wet tyres to dry, in order to challenge for another mixed-weather pole position in MotoGP™. The Australian was challenging for pole position right until his final lap in qualifying, where unfortunately, his Desmosedici GP19 washed out from under him at the final corner. Still though, second on the grid was more than good enough in the Czech Republic for a thrilling Miller.

“I feel pretty good. It’s a nice way to start the second half of the season by qualifying on the front row,” he said. “She was a bit tricky out there, I tried my maximum, came in early, I only did a lap on the wets. I wanted to give myself enough time because the track here in Brno is so long, so it takes so much time to do a lap, so I knew if I was going to do it, I had to do it quite early.

“I wasn’t quite confident on the wets, let’s say, to push because on the dry parts the tyres overheat really quickly and as soon as you hit the wet parts, you’re all over the place. Just staying online was nearly impossible so I came in and made the change.”

Despite his bravery, even Miller cited the fact that the sketchy conditions made him a bit fearful: “It was a little bit scary, I exited with Dovi next to me and he was on wets and he watched me grab a handful of throttle as I left the pitlane and on the wet part the bike lit up. It was a strange situation let’s say because at the end it started raining again, I already caught it the second last lap and it caught me on the last lap, but we had to give it a go today.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow and Jack Miller has every reason to be smiling. His pace on Friday was strong and good enough for a podium, and with his strong starting position on the grid, he may well be one to watch throughout the race.

“Our rhythm in the full dry was good but it’s hard to expect something for tomorrow because I did a lot of laps on the medium in the morning and I wasn’t happy with it. I did a few laps on the hard in the afternoon but not as many as I would have liked so tyres are a big question. We’re going to be very busy tomorrow morning in the warm up but no I’m looking forward to it. Like I say, I had the pace yesterday, so I feel like we’re ready for it, but Marc’s still got a one-step advantage, even a two-step advantage on all of us so we need to catch it.”

Still chasing a top ten in MotoGP™ at Brno, Miller will be more determined than ever before to get in the mix and give Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) a hard time of things in the race.