"A big old fight", says Miller

Jack Miller had no hesitation in calling his victory in the 2014 Tissot Australian Moto3 Grand Prix the best race of his career so far.

Miller, in the 47th race of his Moto3 career, became the first Australian rider to win in the lightweight class of the World Championship at Phillip Island, keeping his title hopes alive by reducing the gap to second-placed finisher Alex Marquez to 20 points.

“That was probably the best race I’ve done,” Miller said in the post-race press conference. “Through the race you could see the Aussie flags flying everywhere, you could feel the support, it was a great feeling – now I know how these guys feel most weeks.”

It was doubly sweet as it was Miller’s first visit to the top step of the podium since the Sachsenring in Germany in round nine.

“The first victory after a little bit of a spell is always good, it’s the first one since before the summer break and to do it here in Phillip Island is extra-special,” Miller added.

The win didn’t come easily, as Miller was quick to point out – especially as his KTM had around a 10 km/h top speed deficit to the Hondas of Marquez and Rins and even to his own teammate Karel Hanika.

“It was a big old fight, for sure, and to win here with the top-speed problems I’m having is really, really good,” Miller said.

Not only that, but for the first time Miller managed to come through for a race win despite not starting at the front.

“It’s the first time I’ve even been on the podium not being on the front row, and this is also good,” he said. “Yesterday qualifying was a disaster, I got traffic every lap, so it was really nice to have a good, clear race like this and get the confidence up again.

“It was incredible: everybody fought quite cleanly, it was a really good race on that front and I don’t think we could ask for a better result.” But he remained realistic about his title chances: “It’s going to be hard, two races and 20 points to go, but we’ll give it a go,” he shrugged.

The Townsville rider then revealed that he had sought some help from Maverick Viñales, the Moto2 rider who tried desperately to catch Moto3 race-winner Rins at Phillip Island last year – and failed by three-thousandths of a second.

“I spoke with Maverick yesterday afternoon about the race last year, when he tried the slipstream with Rins and it didn’t work,” Miller explained. “I asked him, if he could do the race again, what would he do?

“He said ‘If you can lead from Turn 10 it would be best’: that’s what my aim was for and that’s what we did so I also have to thank him a little bit also for helping me make a strategy like that.”

In fact Miller set up the victory by taking the lead decisively at Turn 1 – Doohan Corner – on the 23rd and final lap, holding his pursuers at bay through the hairpin and accelerating through the final corners to break the slipstream and win by just two-hundredths of a second.

So to receive the trophy from Australia’s five-time 500cc World Champion Doohan was the perfect way to round off Miller’s day.

“There’s a lot of great guys have won here and Mick Doohan’s amongst them,” Miller said. “Even to see him before we got the trophy was really special, and to get the congratulations from him was really nice.”