Miller angry over lost-lap delay, not worried by 21st
Jack Miller insisted he isn't concerned after being 21st and last on the Friday afternoon timesheets for the Teruel MotoGP weekend at Aragon.
The Pramac Ducati rider, seventh in the morning session, was among the minority not to fit a new soft rear tyre at the end of FP2, thus meaning he will have plenty of rubber available tomorrow.
"The race is on Sunday and we're just trying to work for that," Miller said. "I generally have no issue pulling a lap out when I need it, it just depends on whether or not I'll get a yellow flag or not, that's the other question."
Jack Miller insisted he isn't concerned after being 21st and last on the Friday afternoon timesheets for the Teruel MotoGP weekend at Aragon.
The Pramac Ducati rider, seventh in the morning session, was among the minority not to fit a new soft rear tyre at the end of FP2, thus meaning he will have plenty of rubber available tomorrow.
"The race is on Sunday and we're just trying to work for that," Miller said. "I generally have no issue pulling a lap out when I need it, it just depends on whether or not I'll get a yellow flag or not, that's the other question."
Miller lost his best Friday lap for passing through an unseen yellow flag, but was most angry at the time it took to inform him that the lap had been deleted.
"I did not a bad lap at the start of FP2, a '48.9 or something, but again it takes them 30 minutes to delete my lap. So I don't know what these ***** are doing up there," he said.
"Apparently I got a yellow flag. Apparently, Aleix Espargaro crashed in the last corner, because I called up Carlos [Ezpeleta] to ask what happened. Because I didn't see a flag at all, how long the flag was out, or whatever.
"Why does it take 30 minutes - well, even more, the whole session, before they cancelled the lap? I don’t understand. Anyway, I'm sure it'll be discussed this afternoon [in the Safety Commission]."
Even if the lap hadn't been cancelled, Miller would only have risen from 21st to 18th and Miller was among five Ducatis at the tail end of the combined Friday timesheets.
"Do I look worried?" he smiled. "Saturday's the fun day, I enjoy Saturday. We'll get to throw plenty of tyres at it tomorrow."
The Australian's main task on Friday was to try and make the soft rear tyre work, having used the medium on his way to ninth last Sunday.
"With this temperature the way it is, the soft just doesn't seem to work that fantastic. But anyway it was better than it was last weekend and we found something with the bike that made me more comfortable," he said.
"Last week we had 38 degrees ground temp when the race started. Today in FP2 the ground temp was around 28 degrees. So we're missing 10 degrees.
"Cold tearing again seemed to be the main issue, causing the tyre to wear faster than it should have. But I think and hope the ground temperature comes up will fix a lot of our problems with tearing on the soft rear tyre.
"But if the temperature is not coming up for Sunday then probably we have to look at the medium again for sure."