Miller: "Shit is going to happen when you ride up the ass of other people"
Miller, who has been in a rich vein of form aside from the Misano MotoGP when he crashed from the lead, came home to secure fifth in Aragon following a race-long battle with Brad Binder and Aleix Espargaro.
After an impressive opening few laps where he managed to keep pace with team-mate Francesco Bagnaia, Miller was quickly relegated to fifth, where he found himself stuck and unable to make an attempt at getting past his rivals ahead.
"I felt like my pace was what I set out to have," said Miller. "I kinda got caught up in the battle early on there with Brad and Aleix.
"I was the last one in the group and couldn’t really make any headway. I had great top speed at the end of the straight but I had a couple of bike lengths coming off the corners; I was able to close back in but I wasn’t at the point where I could attack.
"I rode a good race, without mistakes and was hoping those two would get into a bit more of a battle at the end. It nearly came true at turn one when Aleix came passed and I braked a little earlier to try and cut back underneath, but it wasn’t to be.
"I was trying to nurse the tyre a bit at the beginning which sort of left the door open for Brad to pass me, not once, but twice between three and four.
"Whether or not I should have just thrown caution to the wind and gone for it at the beginning because we all seemed to have the same [level] or drop at the same point of the race, I don’t know. The pace was really fast all the way through."
Miller blames Nakagami for second Marquez collision
After an unfortunate clash with Fabio Quartararo which stemmed from Marquez having to momentarily shut the gas due to lighting up the rear of his RC213V - the Yamaha rider ran straight into Marquez - the Spaniard was then involved in another dramatic moment just four corners later.
Marquez swerved to his left coming out of turn seven due to debris from Quartararo’s Yamaha getting stuck in the rear of his Repsol Honda, which led to Takaaki Nakagami being collected by Marquez before the LCR Honda rider crashed and slid along the middle of the track.
But Miller felt Nakagami could have done more to avoid what was a very scary incident for the Japanese rider.
Marquez, who has voiced his concerns about holeshot devices before - the holeshot device activated coming out of turn seven which led to Marquez losing control - felt that was a major reason for what he called a 'very unlucky' incident with Nakagami and the main reason why he retired from the Grand Prix, however, Miller wasn’t so quick to take aim at the new ‘gadgets’.
Speaking about both incidents, Miller said: "The Fabio one was a racing incident - I mean Marc had to shut the gas and was a little out of the line, tried to crack it on and the tyres were kind of fresh so it lit up on him.
"He had to roll out and Fabio was just the unlucky bystander, let’s say. The Taka incident, from my point of view - just what I saw on the TV - was completely Taka.
"Marc was in front and on the inside. He had the right of way and Taka seemed to be leaning on Marc and eventually lifted his own front tyre.
"That’s a part of it too,” said Miller when told of the issues Marquez was facing. But the Ducati rider continued: “This is racing, sh*t’s going to happen. Sh*t’s going to happen when you ride up the ass of other people. I don’t think we can blame the gadgetry."
Ducati have a MotoGP riders dilemma ‘that not a lot’ of teams have, says Miller
With Bagnaia and Bastianini still contenders for the title, although Bagnaia is 38 points ahead of his fellow Italian, team orders weren’t on show in Aragon as Bastianini overtook Bagnaia on the final lap for the win.
Asked if he was surprised that Bastianini was allowed to fight against Bagnaia, Miller added: "They have a couple of world champions riding their bikes and they have a problem that not a lot of people have got.
"They have a lot of fast riders and a lot of fast bikes so it’s inevitable that that’s going to happen. It’s a good problem to have."
