Jack Miller experiments with body position: “A ballache, literally!”

Jack Miller’s quest to compensate for a lack of lean angle through the fast final sector of the Barcelona circuit during Saturday’s MotoGP Sprint race took its toll on a delicate part of his body.

After finishing at the head of a five-rider group in seventh place, the factory KTM rider explained:

“Not the best day, not the worst. A similar story to Le Mans in the sense that we're just trying to understand about the grip window.

“The track was pretty slick this afternoon and I was really struggling in the last sector. We were missing some degrees of lean in a lot of those flowing, longer corners without brakes.

“I just wasn't able to use the front the way I should or the way I had been able to over the majority of the weekend.

“This morning we were able to do consistent ‘39s. Friday afternoon, we were able to do consistent ‘39s. In the race, my best was 39.9 on lap 3, then we were mid ‘40s the whole race.

“And it wasn't for a lack of grip on the rear. The rear was working as good as anybody I felt. So we’re just trying to understand what we’re missing.”

The Australian’s search for solutions on the low grip surface saw him experiment with body position during the 12 laps.

“It’s literally a ballache! Literally," he replied, when asked if it was fun or a ballache to try different riding styles.

"Because I'm moving my body a lot more than I would, and I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or what, but out of turn 10, I started sitting on some things that you're not supposed to sit on!

“It was an uncomfortable position, just simply because you're stretching too much.

“As the lean gets less, your body hangs out more to compensate, to try and keep that same radius of turning.

“It's fun [to try and experiment], but at the same time you're trying to battle with the world's best, so it's stressful as well!”

The start of the race saw Miller clipped from behind by Marc Marquez, who lost a wing.

“The boys said he clipped me. I didn't feel that,” Miller said. “I was just trying to focus on getting through on Enea and then I got jammed at 4 by Jorge [Martin].

“He did well to stay on it because we kind of both went out on the dirty stuff, he committed massively and the thing came right around on him. 

"I thought 'here we go…' But he did well.”

Miller's team-mate Brad Binder crashed out of the lead on lap 6 with Pedro Acosta the top RC16 over the finish line in third place.