We debrief with Jack Miller after the Mandalika MotoGP

MotoGP 2022 – Round Two
Pertamina Grand Prix of Indonesia
Jack Miller Interview

Trev zoomed in with Jack Miller only minutes after the conclusion of what was an exciting Indonesian GP to get the 27-year-old’s interpretation of how the Indonesian GP unfolded from the cockpit of the #43 Desmosedici.

Jack might me a bit of a lad but he really is a very polished media performer these days and offers some really quite insightful comments, moreso than pretty much any other MotoG rider I must say. Whether that is just his genuine no bullshot Aussie honesty, or a concerted effort to be helpful I don’t know, but I don’t think it is just my Aussie bias leading me to say that he is perhaps the most interesting interview subject in the 2022 MotoGP field.

Amongst the other media on the connection Trev posed this question.

Trev – First up Jack, congratulations for surviving the conditions today and bagging a decent swag of points. I am not going to pretend to have any inkling as to the level of pressure you faced heading into this race after your unfortunate no score at the season opener. The tension on your face was palpable as what I presume was your electronics engineer briefed you on the grid.  Then in the race itself, adapting to the changing conditions, knowing early on that you had a chance of victory, if you took major risks, then balancing that pot of gold against the knowledge that you had no points on the board and needed to ensure that ledger had some numbers in the plus column before you left Indonesia… Am I reading too much into it, or are those factors and a lot more bouncing around inside your helmet, as you ride a 300 horsepower motorcycle on the fine line between adhesion and calamity? 

“Yeah, definitely, I mean I was thinking about all that, for sure. Not starting with any points on the board wasn’t ideal.

“When Fabio came past I saw what he was doing differently, and I tried to do it, and I had moments..

“Fortunately you know, the Ducati is generally pretty good when it comes to letting you know in the wet where you’re at, where the limit is, if you can push more or not, and i had my moments, one time my foot came off the peg and everything and I was like, I am literally just going to throw myself in the gravel here if I continue to do this, so it was just a matter of trying not to lose any more time, just ride as cleanly as possible.

“We had a couple of little other issues on the bike but in general I just had to ride tidy and bring it home.

“I mean fourth was better than a zero, for sure. And like you say getting some points on the board early in the season.. I mean we have got 19 races to go, a lot can happen, and we’ve just got to keep chipping away at it, like you say we didn’t start the season on the right foot.”

Other questioners asked various questions and we include some answers from Jack below.

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“Was a good start, got away up the front, and generally I find my limit in those conditions quite quickly, I got to doing the 1m40s lap times and that was about all I had, I was struggling a little bit with rear grip, more to do with bike set-up than anything else, suffering quite a lot with a little bit of spin let’s say, and not enough rear contact.

“I was having to run quite square lines, and was not able to like roll in the middle of the corner, simply because I think we were just a little bit too stiff on the rear,.

“No laps on wet tyres over the weekend, led to a bit of a guess on set-up, and yes we went maybe a little too stiff.

“My pace didn’t really change, I got a litte bit faster, but no better than a 39-something, yet the other guys were able to find some more pace towards the end, and I wasn’t able to.

“I followed Fabio when he came past, I tried to push a little more to stay with him where he was making up time, and then I had a couple of moments on the front. Basically because I was pushing the rear, then the rear would unload, and in-turn overload the front. For me it was more important to try and manage the race and take as many point as possible, because honestly I didn’t feel as though I had the right set-up under me today. I felt I had pace, I felt I had the speed, but yeah just found my limitation and was suffering quite a lot.”

“The TV always makes it look worse than what the rider gets, but the spray was really, really bad, even on the sighthing lap I was completely drenched, and throughout the whole race.

“Because of the little bit of dirt on the track, it sticks to everything, to the visor, the screen on the bike was useless. Maybe eight laps to go I had to finally wipe the visor, just to try and clear it up, which is something you really try to avoid as it creates sticking points for more stuff to get stuck, but I couldn’t cope any more. At the end of the day its racing in the wet so it is never going to be perfect or 100 per cent so we managed, and I was able to find my way through relatively quickly, but there was a lot of spray, I was drenched just on the sighting lap, the spray that comes up is ridiculous, it’s a lot of water and you feel like you’re standing in front of a hose…”

Then someone asked about Jack being unhappy with Fabio Quartararo…

“I had just passed Fabio and he proceeded to ride his motorcycle into the side of my leg, quite clearly like he did to Johann. I don’t think it’s necessary to once somebody passes you to immediately accelerate towards their front tyre. I will quite happily have a word with him about this not being on, as we saw with Johann as well, I mean you pass, okay, that’s fine, but then, okay, the Yamaha turns well, but that doesn’t mean you open the gas and aim for my front tyre, as that is going to make me crash, I don’t think that is fair. He rode into the side of my leathers, I clearly had better pace at that point in time, I had come from ninth on the grid while he was on pole, it was an unnecessary risk I think that early in the race to be running into the side of my leg.”

Mandalika MotoGP Race Results

MotoGP Championship Standings