Jack Miller “ignored the warning signs”, responds to “brain off” Q2 lap

Jack Miller delighted the Pramac Yamaha team by blasting to fourth on the grid in his M1 qualifying debut at the season-opening Thai MotoGP at Buriram.

The Australian’s best lap was aided by a tow from former Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia.

But Miller also had the pace to keep clear of factory Yamaha star Fabio Quartararo for the first half of the afternoon Sprint race.

Miller’s focus was still very much on attack rather than defence when disaster struck after he “ignored the warning signs” and lost the front on lap 7 of 13.

“Not the way I wanted the sprint race to go, but it is what it is,” Miller said. “I was pushing hard. Ignored all the warning signs the bike was giving me.

“I had a little bit of understeer in the last corner, a little bit on understeer at turn 6 and I continued to push maybe a little bit too much.

“Going into corner 8 I braked the same, leant the same, line was the same, but just she let go. It was simply at that critical moment when the [front] tyre's kind of reached its peak temperature and pressure and starts to drop away.

“I had Franky [Morbidelli] in front of me, and Ai [Ogura] was going towards Pecco. So I was hoping there was going to be a battle commencing ahead that would help me out.

“I felt like I had broken the guys behind me and was just trying to cling on as much as possible but… Little bit too much.

“I definitely feel like I can put the bike where I need it, have it slide and do whatever I need to. It's just a matter of rider intuition. So we’ll learn from that and go forward.”

Switch off the brain? "You’ve got to in Qualifying"

Earlier, Quartararo spoke of Miller's qualifying lap as an example of how the Australian is willing to push the M1 to 'that extra limit'.

“He was behind Pecco, of course there was a little bit of slipstream, but I think that Turn 4, the brain was totally switched off and a big amount of the lap time is there,” said Quartararo, who qualified tenth and finished the Sprint in seventh.

“He was very, very fast and it’s something that I really like - to have someone like Jack who pushes the bike to that extra limit.”

Asked about the Frenchman's comments, Miller replied: “Absolutely, yeah, in Q1 and Q2. But I don't think there's many guys that don't switch off the brain when you throw a bike at a corner at 300 kilometres an hour! That’s what you’ve got to do.”

Despite how the race ended, Miller made clear: “My brain was working in the Sprint, I knew what I was trying to do in terms of trying to break the guys behind me and stay in touch with those boys [ahead] as long as possible.

“The Yamaha seems to be quite conservative on the rear tyre. So I was hoping that I was going to have a little bit more grip than the other boys come the latter stages. But we didn't get that far.”

Miller will get a second chance to turn his best grid position since Valencia 2023 into points during tomorrow’s grand prix.