Pramac Racing’s Jack Miller had a solid Saturday afternoon at Silverstone. The Australian set the third-fastest time in Q2 to sit alongside Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) and Valentino Rossi (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) on the GoPro British Grand Prix front row – but staying there is going to be a challenge.
Miller sits as the sole Ducati rider on the first two rows of the grid as the Desmosedicis – including himself – hit problems on Saturday. Miller encountered bike issues in FP3 at the end of Hanger Straight, and it continued in FP4, forcing the number 43 to revert to his second bike and the chassis he hasn’t used since Brno test. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) suffered some sort of issue with his GP19 at the end of FP4 too, leaving the Italian with one bike for Q1 and Q2. A difficult day for the Bologna factory ended with Miller P3, Dovi P7 and Danilo Petrucci (Ducati Team) in P11.
“This front row was a little bit more different than the last one we had with slicks in the wet. I’m feeling pretty good. We had some problems with the bike in FP3 this morning and they carried on into FP4,” began Miller, explaining his day.
“We were hoping it wasn’t too big, but we found out in FP4 that it’s pretty big. The second bike worked really well. The chassis is different between the two bikes and I hadn’t ridden that chassis since the Brno test. To be honest, I felt really comfortable immediately. I had to go out this morning and immediately do a time attack. It was quite scary but after half a lap I started to understand that actually it wasn’t too bad.
“Really happy to be starting on the front row, especially here at Silverstone. The first sector is so tight here so mistakes can easily happen on the first lap. So, to get out with some fresh air, it’s going to be nice.”
So who does Miller think will be the men to beat tomorrow? A big Silverstone scrap is expected, and the Pramac man thinks a lot rides on who can manage their tyres the best.
“I would’ve liked to have done more laps in FP4 but as always Marquez has an amazing pace. He put in the hard for FP4 and did like six 1:59s in a row and as a rider you just ‘wow’. We’ve got our work cut out. The Yamahas are running a consistent pace also, so we have to just try to manage the tyres. I think that’ll be the biggest thing tomorrow. We’re going to go with hard so let’s see what we can do.”
Tune in at 13:00 local time (GMT+1) to find out how Miller gets on in the race.