MotoGP: Jack Miller interview

Jack Miller says he has found his place in the highly competitive world of MotoGP, and has hopes on securing a factory contract by the end of 2020.

Now five years in the main game, the likeable Aussie sat down with bikesales.com.au staffer and host of Network 10’s MotoGP coverage, Sam Charlwood, for a mid-season assessment of 2019 in Townsville during the traditional mid-season championship break.

In a wide-ranging chat, Miller was honest, candid and at-times controversial with opinions of his own form and the rest of the paddock’s. But the confidence and inner-belief of the Pramac Ducati star leaves an unshakable impression he is only getting started on motorcycling’s biggest stage.

Sam Charlwood: Jack, welcome back to Australia and thanks so much for having us here at your childhood home. What’s it like being back in sunny Townsville?
Jack Miller: No worries, it’s awesome being home. It’s my favourite spot in the world and here we are in the middle of winter and I’m sitting here in shorts and a t-shirt so it’s pretty nice.

SC: By most parameters, it’s been a breakout season for you: seventh in the championship, a podium at Texas and five top six finishes. What’s your assessment after nine rounds?
JM: It’s been pretty good. The podium in Austin was probably the highlight, I loved that and it was an amazing achievement – something we’ve worked very hard for. I was hoping to get another one before the mid-season break but we weren’t quite able to.

We’ve been close with Le Mans and in Mugello when I crashed out. We’ve been there most races, so that’s definitely given me some support and getting me closer to achieving that ultimate goal, winning another race.

Being on the factory bike has played a big part with me being able to ride the front group and stay with them the whole race, I put that down to a lot of it but being a little more mature and being around the traps a bit longer and knowing how to ride these bikes more is definitely part of it to.

SC: Crazy to think you’ve been in MotoGP for five years. How do you measure your success and progress?
JM: We always have gaps to the front and we’re trying to get closer. The last couple of races haven’t been ideal – on paper a sixth place in Germany looks good – but the gap to the front is not what we want. Marc Marquez has put some a couple of blinders together in the last few races and really been able to stretch out his lead in the championship. He’s in top form. The team’s helping me to close the gap and we’re slowly getting there.

SC: The Ducati has some great advantages over other bikes, but Assen and the Sachsenring both underlined some persistent turn-in difficulties. Is that where the development work needs to be concentrated?
JM: Definitely. We’ve made some big steps in the last couple of years but there’s still some areas, for example Assen with the fast turn-in areas, where the bike is very heavy. On that Sunday in Assen it was the perfect storm for us: windy, the bike felt so heavy and the temperature was the hottest it had been all weekend so it wasn’t working that great. We struggled a lot.

In Germany it was a classic case of the Ducati – we were pulling massive lean angles to try and get the thing turned in but we were missing a bit of turn-in. We’ve got a big bike, so it helps on tracks like Austin with big acceleration but when it comes to tight, technical circuits, we don’t even use sixth gear at Sachsenring – it’s all second and third.

Those tight, technical circuits, which haven’t been the best Ducati tracks in the past; they’re the areas we’ve got to work on. We’re making headway in that area, but the GP20 will be a big improvement in those areas: we’ve been testing some items trying to get it that little bit closer to the other bikes.

SC: Is it mainly you and Michele Pirro leading development or are the factory boys doing a bit of development work as well?
JM: Danilo Petrucci is doing some work there as well. We’re all giving feedback and Ducati will take information from all of us, just trying to feed off each other. We’ve all got the same goal, which is trying to improve the bike.

SC: How much has that development work impacted your results?
JM: It doesn’t really impact my results. Most of the testing has been done pretty quick and nowadays with the MotoGP having two bikes on the box it’s pretty easy – you go out and if it’s no good you’ve got the other bike there set up to go with your preferred setting.

SC: Ducati really dangled the carrot for the factory ride next year. You came tantalisingly close to securing that but ultimately it was given to incumbent Danilo Petrucci. Irrespective of that, you’re on a GP20 for next year. Is that a good outcome in your mind?
JM: It would have been nice to be dressed up in red next year but it wasn’t to be. We were really close this year … so myself, I’ve made a decision to do another one-year contract and then sync up with everyone else so that there’s a factory seat available next year and we’ve actually got some sort of bartering power when it comes to contract time. It will be interesting to see what they’re going to do. Hopefully I can keep improving and then see what happens next year.

SC: You said earlier in the year that you’re learning a lot from being around the top guys in races, in particular Ducati factory rider Andrea Dovizioso. How important is Andrea in terms of your development?
JM: He’s definitely important in the way he runs the race up until three-quarters. He’s really smart in the way he keeps his tyres and how smart he is. He’s always really calm and stays in control. That’s something I’ve needed to work on and imitate him on.
I feel like we’re on the right way.

SC: Earlier in the year, we saw you turn up at a regular track day on a Ducati Panigale street bike, you’re always hooning around on those mini bikes and on motocross bikes. From the outside it seems as though you’re following this career for the same reasons you got into it originally got into it – a bit of fun. Is that a fair assessment?
JM: For sure. It can’t all be fun now though, you’ve got to knuckle down a bit in terms of working with the team. It’s not like it used to be where you get off the bike and chat with your mates; you’ve got to go through all the data.

But any time I get to ride a bike is good, I love riding motorbikes. I feel like it’s what I was put on this earth to do and it’s probably one of the only things I’m really good at. I enjoy it and any time I get home and I’m able to ride a bike I’ve got a smile under my helmet.

When I went and did that ride day on the Panigale, it’s just fun. You have a bit of a laugh, the serious side of GP racing is still there but you have a bit of fun and you’re working on fitness and bike control at the same time.

SC: Five years into the main game now, do you feel as though you’ve really cemented your place in MotoGP?
JM: Definitely, at the start being the young guy straight out of Moto3, it felt almost like you didn’t belong. While I had a three-year contract, it wasn’t until coming up to the halfway mark of that, when I won in Assen which was completely out of the blue, that it changed. Up until then I thought it was going to be difficult to get a contract in the following years. I was able to knuckle down and focus on the areas I’ve needed to work on.

Year by year we’ve been getting a lot better equipment and also getting a lot more respect from team bosses and factory bosses. I really feel like I’m a seasoned guy in MotoGP now who belongs. We have guys coming up to us and trying to talk for the next years – that alone means I’ve got a place for at least the next couple of years.

SC: If this season is about being consistently top five, and Pramac extend your contract for another 12 months, what’s your goal next season?
JM: If we can go top five this year and get the factory bike for 2020, the goal next season has to be moving up into the top three consistently. We need to be consistently on the podium and with a lot less mistakes.

I’d love to be able to see the points for me this season if my seat didn’t come off in Qatar, if I didn’t lay it down in Jerez and Mugello, we’d be right up there near the top three. We’ve got to get the consistency there just a little bit more and on the tracks that I’m struggling with, say Jerez or Assen, we can’t let it affect us too much. We still need to be there.

SC: I’d like to ask your opinions on the rest of the rest, if I may. Fabio Quartararo – what do you think of him? He’s quick, but so was Johan Zarco on that satellite Yamaha...
JM: It’s a similar situation as Zarco I think. That satellite Yamaha seems to work really well for guys coming up from Moto2. They’re able to carry a lot of lean angle and they’re able to ride the bike similarly to Moto2, where the other bikes you can’t because the smoke the tyres off them.

I think Fabio’s doing well when you look at all the other rookies coming through. He’s definitely in a field of his own in terms of the other rookies, he’s blisteringly fast and it’s a little scary. It’s hard to say what he’d be like on a different bike though – Yamaha’s quite easily the least physical bike to ride and speaking with guys like Cal Crutchlow, who’s spent time on it, it’s been the easiest to ride for some time.

SC: Jorge Lorenzo – you would have seen his work at Ducati and any part he played in development. How long do you think it will take to fire on factory Honda?
JM: Will he fire? That’s the biggest thing. A lot of people talk about his work at Ducati but it’s not his work, the bike was already on the up and they’d already had a victory the year before. They took Lorenzo on he made some sticky things to put on the side of the fuel tank and now everyone thinks he’s a genius.

We’ll have to wait and see what Lorenzo does on the Honda once he’s back to full fitness. It’s hard because he’s getting older and older and those tumbles don’t get any easier. I’ve injured my back and it’s a big road to recovery. He’s quite mentally strong but whether he’s to gel with the Honda is another thing because his riding style compared to Marc’s is completely different.

Jorge’s completely smooth and every time he tries to trust the front, it doesn’t give him what he wants. Marc doesn’t trust the front, he’s always got his elbow there ready to catch it and as we’ve seen on multiple occasions he does.

SC: A hypothetical for you, if Ducati threw huge money at Marc Marquez for a seat in the future, do you feel like he’d be a race winner on that bike?
JM: The problem is they’d be going up against Honda and Honda can’t afford to lose Marc Marquez. He’s their hail mary. If they lose him, they’re not winning.

The last couple of years Marc has been able to grit his teeth, hold it on his elbow and bring them some championships. If they lost Marc they’d be in big strife because if you look at their next best, there’s Cal Crutchlow and Taka Nakagami, who are both behind me in the standings.

If Ducati came in and said to Marc ‘we’ll give you $100 million’, Honda would give him $101 million.

SC: Thank you so much for your time Jack, and for being so honest and forthright with your answers. Great to catch up as always.
JM: Definitely, it’s back to be back home in Oz. Thanks for having me.

Watch the interview on Sunday, August 4 at 4:00pm on Network 10’s motorsport program, RPM, or during the network’s MotoGP broadcast.