At the end of a great first day of free practice, Jack Miller brilliantly placed his Ducati Pramac in third position, 0.269 behind Fabio Quartararo and 0.246 behind Marc Márquez. The Australian is ahead of the Desmosedici drivers, with a time equal to that of Andrea Dovizioso, but having been achieved earlier.
During the first morning session, this same Dovi was the fastest in 1'56.919, while Jack Miller occupied sixth position in 1'57.385. The two Ducati riders improved the afternoon with an identical time of 1'56.071. It's a good time for both men, very close to the lap record set in 1'56.027 by Dani Pedrosa (Honda) in 2014.
The opportunity will therefore be good to seize for the Australian this Sunday for his 131st Grand Prix, including 6 in 125 cc and 3 in Moto49. So far in 3 MotoGP races, he has won one victory (at Assen in 75), and achieved a pole position and a fastest lap in the race.
This year, Miller's goal was to become Dovizioso's teammate next season within the official Ducati team, but Jack is currently only seventh with 70 points while his main opponent Danilo Petrucci is third with 121 points. Miller is therefore awaiting the renewal of his contract with Team Pramac which should not take long, with a real factory motorcycle identical to those of the official team.
Jack's 2019 season has been very honorable so far, without being dazzling. He qualified once on the front row, third on the grid at the French GP, and once stood on the third step of the podium in Austin, Texas. He has 5 places among the first 6 obtained during the first 9 Grands Prix, with two retirements. The Brno circuit has never really been successful for him with a 12th, 14th, 19th place and one retirement in 4 appearances in the MotoGP category. His best result in 3 Moto3 starts was a 5th place in 2014.
For Jack Miller, “ It was a very positive day and it was nice to get the feeling back immediately after two races on circuits that were not easy for us.”
“We were fast both in race pace and single lap time and the tires also worked very well, even though the circuit conditions were not optimal.”
“The bike works really well here. Honestly, we didn't change much over the summer break. Today I tried all kinds of erasers. In the morning I did a few laps with the medium tires and in the afternoon with the hard ones, all seem to work well.”
“It also makes it harder to guess which tires are better. The hard compounds seem to work well at the rear, but I want to try a different front tire. I rode for 16 or 17 laps, but it wasn't ideal. Everything else was great. We are all quite fast, we are all very close to each other” Miller said with a smile. “I guess the other guys are like me…”
Results of the first day of testing:
Reference times:
Test record: 1'54.596 by Marc Marquez (Honda) in 2016
Lap record: 1'56.027 by Dani Pedrosa (Honda) in 2014
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
Photos © Pramac Racing, motogp.com / Dorna
