Jack Miller: It was the most arse-clenching moment of the championship!

The zig-zag chicane was built in response to the huge 2020 accident between Johann Zarco and Franco Morbidelli, who collided when their lines crossed through the flat-out corner.

Their fallen bikes then bounced down the track, narrowly missing Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi at the following turn.

“I'm just happy that they've done something, before something [bad has] happened,” said Miller. “We've had a couple of close calls and the bikes shaking and carrying on with the wind and everything that's coming off a bike doing 350km/h up there wasn’t ideal.

“So I think [the chicane] will be better. I don't think there's any real negatives to come from it. I think it'll make the racing better, by opening up that next corner [Turn 3] to be more of a passing zone than before.

“Because at less speed you've got more margin to be able to stop the bike. If you brake one-second later at 350 you’re going off the end of the track. If you brake one second later at 200 it’s a big difference.”

But in terms of the sheer thrill factor, the Australian admitted he’ll miss the original Turn 2.

“It was probably, along with Mugello, the most arse-clenching moment of the championship,” Miller said.

“Because you come out of [Turn 1], hug the white line going down the straight and then tip it left at like 340-350km/h. There's also that wall on the inside that you were sort of aiming towards!

“You're going to miss that because it was cool, but you're not going miss it when you’re in a slipstream, absolutely [shaking] out of control with a tank slapper and then trying to grab the brakes that aren't there anymore.”

Miller doesn’t think the slow chicane will erode Ducati’s strength at the Austrian track, where the Desmosedici has won six of the last eight races, but did highlight that the exit of the chicane will now become the first left-hand corner of the lap.

“Before you were going another kilometre and a half [to Turn 6] until you touched the left-hand side. So you were always very tentative there, tipping it in especially,” Miller said.

“It’s a slow [chicane], but any time you can get on that [left] side of the tyre is going to make a difference.”

Accepting there will always be ‘naysayers’, Miller added:

“It was getting dangerous and the track have responded and done a safe alternative to the other layout. You're always going to get naysayers when you change a track,. just like in Barcelona, but [it means] we're able to continue racing at these fantastic venues for the future.

Zarco ‘sad it hasn’t got my name on it!’

Zarco fractured his scaphoid in the 2020 incident with Morbidelli, then was penalised with a pit lane start for the following weekend’s event by the FIM Stewards.

Given the furore at the time, Zarco joked of the chicane: “I'm a bit sad that there is not my name on it! With all the words two years ago.

“The problem two years ago was because there was contact between two riders at highspeed and then a huge crash.

“Just slowing down everything, that's a first solution to avoid this kind of accident. But for a lowside, that can happen if you lose the front [on the way into the chicane], maybe now a bike [could continue] in the middle [of the track].”

Zarco isn’t the only rider to raise concerns over a fallen bike on entry to the chicane potentially colliding with those ahead.

“We had different ideas and we were not 100% agreed to make this kind of chicane,” Zarco said of the riders’ opinions. “But the other possibilities, that could have been better for the layout and more fun to ride, were too [expensive].

“We have been thinking about other options, but I think for cost and to not maybe move too much of the mountain, the chicane was the easiest way to do it.”

2020 world champion Joan Mir said: “My impression, without seeing and riding, is that the chicane will be less fun because I think that the old turn was pretty nice, because it's a corner that you don't have anywhere else on the calendar.

“You had to change the direction at high speed on the brakes and that was pretty nice. But that corner was especially dangerous and a chicane will be the best solution to avoid the type of crash we saw in 2020.

“But it will also now be the first left corner after a lot of rights, so probably we have to be a bit careful on the first lap.

“Apart from that, more or less every bike turns well now, so I don’t think any bike will have more or less of an advantage from it.”