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Miller “kicking himself” for missing Phillip Island front row

Jack Miller admits that he’s “kicking himself” after missing out on a front row qualifying spot at his home Grand Prix, blaming a combination of the wrong tyre choice and a mistake on his last lap.

Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS

Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS

In what was a frantic session on a constantly-drying track, Miller looked like he was on for a front row start when he jumped to P3 on his final lap, right at the flag.

But just seconds later he was shuffled back to fifth, both Pol and Aleix Espargaro making their own improvements to lock out third and fourth, relegating Miller to a second row start.

It left Miller ruing a mistake he made at the end of his last lap.

“I’m kicking myself that I’m not on the front row. I’m really disappointed to not be on the front row, because I want to get into that press conference,” Miller said.

“[I’m] very annoyed it’s not a front row. It probably would have been if I didn’t hit a kerb on the last corner.”

Unlike both polesitter Marc Marquez and third-placed Espargaro, Miller matched an intermediate front and a slick rear right to the end of the session. But he says it wasn’t meant to be that way, and that he would have ideally had slicks all round for his final run.

“I wanted to put the slicks on," he explained. "I did one lap with a wet front and an intermediate rear, and I didn’t even complete it. Me and Marc pulled in at exactly the same time, and I said to the boys ‘we need to put slicks on’.

“They said we didn’t have time, they got told it was going to rain, so they sent me out on intermediate front, slick rear. I was expecting to have the dry bike done up with a slick/slick for the second pitstop, but it wasn’t to be. We just had to take what we had.”

Mixed conditions helping

Having talked down his chances of being a podium contender all week, hometown hero Miller said that today’s competitive showing was helped greatly by the mixed conditions, and the fact that the on-again, off-again rain held back the factory bikes in terms of dry set-up.

“The less amount of time for those other guys to get their electronics set up and what they’re doing differently to us, it definitely helps,” he said.

“It’ll help us for the race, especially as they’ve got four or five blokes working on their electronic strategy, we’ve got one guy. We’re a lot slower than them to set stuff up, so if we can keep it with not too much track time in the dry it will help us in the long run.

“It helps us set-up wise and stuff like that, because if we all go out with the same set-up, I feel that’s when we can excel a little bit better when the bike’s not perfect. Trying to get our bike to work perfectly, that’s the hard thing.”

With the current forecast for a dry race tomorrow, but the Phillip Island weather notoriously fickle, Miller said he’s happy to work with whatever the sky throws at him for the race. But he brushed away suggestions he will be praying for rain.

“Whatever I say won’t matter. It’s Phillip Island, it’ll choose the weather,” he added.

“We’ll take it as it comes. I’d like a dry race, because 30 laps around here is a long time, and if you have to do it in the wet it’s even worse. I’d definitely like a dry race, I’d like to mix it in the dry. I think this weekend we’ve got a good old chance of doing that.”

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