Jack Miller (Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS) took his first DNF of the season in the Spanish GP, after contact from Alvaro Bautista (Pull&Bear Aspar Team) sent him off early on. Second fastest on Friday and having shown great pace all weekend, the Queenslander was understandably disappointed with the result – but ready to bounce back in France:
Jack Miller: “It was a positive weekend until the race, I had good pace in practice and felt comfortable with the bike. I got a good start but got caught up with a bunch of other riders on laps three and four and almost got cleaned up a couple of times. Then Alvaro threw it in deep on the brakes, lost the front and took me out when I was on target for another top ten finish. It was real shame but the positives are that I had great pace and I can take that forward to the race at Le Mans.”
After letting frustration take over in the heat of the moment, Miller was fined for his reaction at the time – but everything was much calmer on Monday as the Aussie got back down to work in the #JerezTest. 86 laps left the Assen 2016 winner with positive feelings, and a best of 1:39.548 put him in P11 after remaining in the top ten for much of the day.
JM43: "It was a positive day of testing for us and we certainly put in the laps. The best thing is that they were all good quality laps when you look at the times and the consistency, so I'm pretty happy with that. We also tried the new front tyre; well it's more of an old new front because we've tried it before. I liked it and it worked well in the heat here, but there's a question mark over how well it will work when we get to colder tracks like Assen or Sachsenring. We threw in a soft tyre right at the end, but there was too much spinning from the rear to set a faster lap time."