Miller with ‘bit of a margin, podium still achievable’

Jack Miller was “satisfied” with the first day of MotoGP free practice at Phillip Island, and maintains his belief that a famous home is possible on Sunday.

The Australian posted the eighth fastest time on Friday after a solid day, but has earmarked the seaside track’s final turn as an area that needs working on.

“[I’m] Satisfied,” said Miller. “Good to be inside that top ten, if we have any dramas, we've got a little bit of margin, but on the cusp of being outside of it, so we've got a little bit of work to do.

“I was happy with the morning, but the changes we made in the afternoon worked pretty good, but just created some dramas for us in terms of braking and also accelerating, getting a lot of pumping, so we're going to go back the drawing board and try and do something a little bit different rather than go for a harder spring.

“So we've got our idea of which way we've got to work tomorrow, so we've just got to put it all together.”

On his impressions of Michelin’s tyre allocation, the Australian said, “I mean the soft is OK, but the problem is that we only get five softs, so we're trying to make do with that. But I put the medium on and it was alright, I didn't really have a drama with trying to get temperature into the front tyre.

“Once I'd put the medium on, I took a lap to really try to work it hard and get some temperature into it. I feel they're alright. It's more the hard, I think, it's a strange option for here.”

On his overall feeling, Miller said, “Not bad. Got some small dramas to fix, just in terms of braking into turn two, turn six, and turn nine, just losing the front, but apart from that, a little bit of pumping from the rear, just goes a little on the front straight and also before turn three, where you don't really want it.

“[I’ve] Got an idea of where we want to work. We tried something different this arvo and it sort of made the problem, it fixed one of the other problems, which was turning, but it made these other problem arise.

“So we've just got to try and find a different way around it to arrive at the same point. But for tomorrow, just got to hope the wind dies down a little bit. We were struggling, especially like, I was fastest in the last sector this morning, and I was much slower in the last sector this afternoon.

“I just couldn't seem to get the bike to go through turn twelve, it just didn't want to come. I don't know if it's the wind or what, but hoping it's not going to blow too much tomorrow.

“We'll wait and see for tomorrow, first of all, what the lap times are going to do. But I'm happy, satisfied, let's say, with the performance of the bike today, but we need a little bit more to be there, competitive in the race.

“We're going to have to find a little bit more settings, but luckily it's only Friday and we've got plenty of time until the race. So we've got some ideas and I guess we'll be alright.

“The podium's still an achievable goal, we've put in a race run there, I think I had well over race distance on the front tyre, and the rear was quite knackered, especially because I used it when the track was green this morning. And the bike's still behaving quite well, so we should be alright.”