Jack Miller reacts to “pain in the arse” moments in Mandalika practice

Jack Miller had “strange moments” on his KTM during Friday practice ahead of the Indonesian MotoGP.

Miller was 17th in the morning session then 16th in the afternoon.

But it was a particularly part of the circuit which cost him valuable time.

“It was a positive day,” Miller reflected. “We had good pace in the afternoon, we did a long run and felt good. The bike worked okay.

“When I needed to push a lap time at the end, I had a couple of moments… strange ones…

“After the back straight at Turn 10 and 11. I was in control to carry corner speed but, for some reason, both times going in, mid-way through the apex, the rear locked.

“It does some strange things like that, sometimes.

“We tried to carry more corner speed and lost the grip from the edge of the tyre.

“In general the bike works well in low-grip conditions.

“If we can fix that Sector 2 tomorrow, have more speed through there…

“We made a massive step today, we’re getting better and better.”

Miller was asked if engine braking was the cause of his problems controlling the rear of his KTM.

“I don’t know if it’s a matter of slip. I’m unsure on that,” he said.

“We’re trying to fix it now, the boys are trying to understand what went wrong.

“But it’s a pain in the arse, especially when you’ve put a new tyre on and you’ve put together the first half of the lap well.

“The problem here is, if you have a moment like that, especially in that sequence of corners, you then hit the dirty shit between Turn 11 and 12.

“The bike loses speed, you’re running off-line at the next one, and instead of losing eight tenths you end up losing three tenths.”

Pedro Acosta was the fastest KTM on Friday at Mandalika, going eighth-quickest.

Miller’s factory teammate Brad Binder was 14th on Friday afternoon.