Seventh in today’s race in Buddh, India, Jack Miller confessed that he had a good day and felt good, as well as being able to identify some areas for improvement. Regarding the tricky start to the race, where five riders crashed, the australian said that it was inevitable and that he had antecipated it.
Here’s the KTM rider’s summary of his day: ‘It was a positive day, I had more pace and was able to go faster in the race. I felt really good but there are some areas where we need to improve but we took a big step forward today. Qualifying wasn’t terrible but Q1 is Q1 and we simply weren’t fast enough. In the race we had a good start and I was able to stay with the guys but maybe I lacked a bit of pace, half a second or so, and I have some ideas about what areas we can work on, both in terms of my riding and the set-up of the bike. It wasn’t a terrible day and it’s good to be back in the top ten‘.
As for the chaotic start to the race, the #43 said that in such a technical corner, with so many riders attacking it at the start and allied to the track conditions, something ‘inevitable’ had to happen:
– The crashes? It’s normal for that to happen here. Turn one is tight, technical and I don’t think anyone has made a run this weekend without going wide there. It’s a difficult corner and when they send us go to there like that on the first lap and with more tricky conditions, it’s inevitable. You’ve got 22, or 21 now going into the same part of the track and that’s what can happen. I said yesterday that there was always going to be some chaos there.
He went on to explain what riders can do to avoid bad luck there: ‘You have to be calm and try to manage. The circuit itself has some very challenging points, such as turn eight or nine. Overall I had a good day and I’ll try to improve for tomorrow’.
In addition, Miller considered the decision to postpone the race to be the right one: ‘It was pissing a lot in Moto3 and postponing the race a little was the right decision and I’m glad it was’.
As to whether the more complicated conditions might help him, he replied with a smile: ‘Always! But let’s keep our fingers crossed that we’ll have a hot race tomorrow and we’ll see some of the guys getting more tired, others on a better level. It will be fun to prepare for this tour of Asia in the right way, with humidity, heat, everything’.