Recurring vibration issue strikes Jack Miller in Malaysian MotoGP Sprint

Jack Miller finished ninth in the Malaysian MotoGP Sprint, but was held back by a vibration issue.

Miller qualified well in seventh, but didn’t make the most of the start as his front start device didn’t disengage when he braked for the first corner.

“Qualifying inside that top-10 makes life a lot easier,” Miller said, “but I kind of ballsed it up a bit to be honest.

“I saw [Enea] Bastianini going deep at turn one, and I braked early expecting the whole group to maybe blow out that way, and I’d maybe hold a tighter line at turn one.

“But in doing that I didn’t unlock my front device and had to have another stab at it into turn two, and go back to first [gear] and I just got swarmed coming out of turn two.

“So, not ideal, but I was able to fight back a little bit, I tried my best.”

Miller ran into problems at turn five, where on Friday he’d encountered a vibration during Practice, one he thought had been rectified on Saturday.

“Turn five was a real big issue for me,” Miller said. “We had an issue yesterday there: kind of halfway through one of the time attacks, I’d just done my best lap and I kind of hit a bump and from that moment on the bike started vibrating.

“Once we swapped bikes it was better, back to how it was prior to hitting the bump, and even this morning we changed a few parts, and the seat, and it was better again, but it seemed to happen again in the race.

“From the get go the vibration was really bad in turn five, so I couldn’t crank it in, I had to really roll off the gas and almost grab a bit of front brake there to transfer the load off the rear, and then mid-corner really opening the gas — rather than carrying corner speed, trying to accelerate through the corner.

“Apart from that, the bike was working really well: I could turn on a dimepiece, and it was good for fighting, so can’t complain too much. If we can try to get the same start as today, but man up a bit in turn one and get the elbows out a little bit more.”

Miller was the only KTM rider to qualify for Q2 straight from Practice, and for the second weekend in a row was battling with Pedro Acosta, who will replace him at the factory KTM team next season.

“I feel like we’ve made a step with the bike,” Miller said.

“We made some radical changes for the wet on Sunday [in Thailand], but obviously we were doing that anyway, regardless of the conditions on Sunday in Thailand.

“But it’s been a gradual building on things, and just having these consecutive races to get some time under our seat and try and understand what’s going on with this bike; and have a little bit of help from the guys at home to try and sort out these vibration issues has been good.

“The bike does some things really well, but when you have something hindering you like that vibration it’s not been easy throughout the year, and we’re finally making headway on it now.”