Jack Miller: Throttle cable “feels like home, you can’t replicate it”

Jack Miller’s switch from KTM to Pramac Yamaha for the 2025 MotoGP season, which starts in Thailand this weekend, also means a welcome return to an ‘old-school’ throttle cable.

While the sophisticated electronics of a modern MotoGP bike mean the need for a mechanical link between the twist grip and engine disappeared long ago, engineers are yet to replicate the familiar feeling of a cable.

“It felt good immediately,” said Miller of the YZR-M1’s throttle.

“As soon as I hop back on the cables it feels like home.”

The Australian added: “You can't replicate cables going through the sheath.

“There’s just something about it. It’s what you've grown up with for the past 30 years.”

Various springs and mechanisms can be used with an electronic throttle, to try and mimic the initial grab and then resistance felt by a wire cable being pulled through the outer sheathing.

“You do the best you can with the free play and everything on an electronic throttle, but it just not the same,” said Miller.

“I can't explain it to you because I don't know the reason!

“It’s just the grind of the cable through the sheath.”

New team-mate Miguel Oliveira, arriving from Trackhouse, is another cable fan.

“I had cables also last year… but I think they [Aprilia] changed it this year,” he said of the RS-GP.

The Portuguese explained that he had started on an electronic throttle last season.

“But then I changed, only because I hated the free play that the throttle had,” he said.

“After a couple of races analysing some data, they kind of pushed me to get back to the cable with the free play. But it's a hard thing!

“This one [at Yamaha] is good.”

Miller and Oliveira will make their Yamaha race debuts at Buriram on Sunday.