Miller: Marquez master tactician, today bit him on arse

Jack Miller has labelled world champion Marc Marquez “a master tactician” but felt his qualifying strategy at Sepang “bit him on the arse” as the Spaniard’s waiting for Fabio Quartararo ultimately led to a spectacular crash.

Marquez will start Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix from eleventh on the grid thanks to the fall, which Miller believes was down to the left side of his rear tyre cooling down. The Catalan didnt' mention this, saying it was because of an overly aggressive approach to turn two.

Miller wasn’t far behind the incident, and gave his view on Saturday afternoon. “[Alex] Rins ran me off at the last corner like a complete f*****g idiot for no reason. He just drove up the inside of me and ran me off the edge of the track starting the lap.

“Then I ran on at turn one and saw Marc highside. I knew exactly what he’d done. He was dicking around so much and the left side [of the rear] gets cold. It’s quite hard, the left side here and it got too cold and high-sided him.

“Watching the replay it did not look pleasant because he wasn’t able to get any hands up. It was straight on the face so I hope he’s alright.

“It’s hard to say exactly what he was trying to do. No one knows. He’ll know. He had a game plan obviously and he was playing the cat and mouse. He’s generally the master tactician but today it came back to bite him on the arse.

“I mean, he’s eleventh. Hey, he’s a world champ so he can kind of do whatever he wants.”

Looking towards Sunday, Miller believes he has “a good chance” to replicate his Phillip Island feats at the Malaysian Grand Prix, a bout that he feels will be a “cat and mouse” scrap at the front.

The Australian qualified fourth in Q2 and was the first non-Yamaha rider after another strong weekend. What’s more, Miller sounded confident when talking about his chances for Sunday’s 20-lap affair.

“I think we’ve got a good chance,” he began. “The Yamahas are always strong through free practice. I’d like to see how it goes when it comes to race time. I think we’ve done our homework. I think we’ve got a really good chance against those guys.

“Let’s see how we manage the rear tyre and how the Yamahas do. Viñales this morning seemed to have really great pace on the medium rear. A lot of 1m 59s. But like I said, we have to wait and see what happens when the race comes round.

“Race tyre looks like it’s going to be softs… Soft front, soft rear. I was sort of anti-the [soft] front. But it’s come round as the track’s progressed. The front’s come back into its own. It’s not really doing too much collapsing, it’s got a bit more turning.

“You just have to watch it on the edge with the understeer. That’s maybe the only thing that could come undone there. Then the rear, they’re both quite similar to each other. The hard is completely like a back up. Because of the new bits of surface they brought it.

“I don’t think anyone will be looking at that. It’ll be between the soft and the medium. I’m quite good on the soft. I’ve done a lot of laps. I’m able to keep the pace, which for me is good. Maverick’s blistering pace with the 1m 59s, it looks like he’s going to ride away from us again. But we’ll have to see how the race unfolds.

“I think all the Yamahas seem to be going pretty strong. It’s going to be one of those cat-and-mouse kind of races like it always is here for the first 10-15 laps. Keep calm and try not to destroy the tyre too much. I felt I rode quite smart race in Australia. It will be quite a bit more of that I think come Sunday here.

“[The Yamaha] seems to be working quite well. There is a lot of time on the angle, a lot of turning. For example sector three is my worst sector by far and that’s where the Yamaha can excel.

“We’ve got big horsepower. The Honda’s got big horsepower. The Yamaha can get out of the turns quite quickly, especially that long right hander before the back straight.”