Miller: “Weak point in dry is strength in wet, but any of these blokes can win”
Last year Miguel Oliveira profited from the KTM bike’s proficiency in the wet, winning in soaking weather in Indonesia and Thailand, and Miller has now had his first small taste of that experience.
The second day of the Sepang test, with Miller getting accustomed to new machinery after his switch from Ducati, played out amid rain.
“It was a really productive afternoon,” Miller said. “I didn’t play with the wet setting but the bike has big potential in the wet, as I saw last year following Miguel.
“A weak point in the dry becomes its strength in the wet. It’s about understanding what it does in the wet, and transferring it over to the weakest point of the bike, which is acceleration off the straights.
“The aquaplaning was decent, the bike handled the wet.
“I’m not saying the others are not fast. On any given day, any of these blokes can win in the wet. But it’s one of the areas we’re looking at. Not only that - we want to be fast in the dry.
“But to have that in our arsenal? If it rains on a Sunday, we’re ready to have at it!
“We would have liked to be further up the timing table.”
Miller was 19th-fastest on Saturday, and teammate Brad Binder was 10th. Pramac rider Jorge Martin was the fastest.
“The day was still very useful for us,” Miller said. “I got out first-thing this morning, the track was greasy, but I tried to kickstart the day.
“I got pretty comfortable on the used tyres from yesterday. Then I did the back-to-back with the new engine, and tried to understand that.
“Once we got comfortable on the old bike, we swapped over. I was comfortable, convinced by the direction that we’re heading in. The bike is working really well.
“There are some little things that we need to iron out, which there always are when it’s a brand new engine, but nonetheless it’s a really positive step.
“It’s a matter of getting the rest of the things sorted out. It wasn’t all useless this afternoon - we tested things that didn’t require a dry track.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
