Miller feels ‘big difference’, bike turning ‘more’ than last year at Aragon

Despite losing a little bit of confidence following a setup direction in FP2, Jack Miller recovered to end day one of the Aragon MotoGP fastest. 

Miller’s late time-attack run saw him edge out Aleix Espargaro by nearly three tenths, while only Cal Crutchlow and Johann Zarco managed to join them in setting sub 1m 48s lap times.

Not just Miller, but fellow Ducati riders Zarco, Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia were all inside the top six, which highlights Ducati’ improvements from Aragon 2020. 

Regarding the specific gains and where they are coming from, Miller said: "For sure corners like Turn 10 and the last two corners, it's just fantastic. You really notice the big difference. 

"We're still struggling a little bit with set up, just little things, but these corners where you have a really long time on lean angle, and you're trying to keep a neutral position on the gas or even slowly winding it on, the bike continues to turn more than before. 

"Before you’d have to play a little bit more, either roll off the edge of the tyre, or just have to go wide. 

"So immediately from the first laps today I understood it was nice and we could take advantage of this for sure."

Although Miller was fastest, the Australian wasn’t quite as consistent as Fabio Quatararo or team-mate Bagnaia regarding race performance. 

Miller believes he’s in contention though, and that a small step in the ‘wrong direction’ meant not being able to complete as many 1m 48s laps as he had hoped for.

"I think we’ll be alright. I’ll work on my pace for sure. I showed many many times what the practice pace is and what I can do in the race is always a little bit different," said the factory Ducati man. 

"But sure, I would have liked to have done a few more 1'48s today, and I think I had the pace in the afternoon. 

"But it's just like when we swapped to the other bike I seemed to struggle a little bit more, and as I said, looks like we made a step in the wrong direction. 

"It just hindered my confidence. So now we’ll go back and work on that for tomorrow."