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Edition

USA

Opinion: How Jack Miller finally came of age at Assen

Jack Miller’s raw talent had never been in doubt, but his application and maturity had been – until he took the chequered flag in treacherous conditions in last weekend’s Dutch TT to seal his first MotoGP win.

Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda and Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda and Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Podium: winner Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Toni Elias
Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team and Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Podium: winner Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda, second place Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Jack Miller leads
Third place Jack Miller
Jack Miller
Jack Miller, Team LCR Honda
Jack Miller, LCR Honda
Jack Miller
Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team and Cal Crutchlow and Jack Miller, Team LCR Honda
Jack Miller, Team LCR Honda
Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Jack Miller, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS
Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda and Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Podium: winner Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Winner Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Ben Spies, Yamaha Factory Racing
Podium: winner Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda
Winner Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda

Nearly 10 years had passed since the sport’s last big upset, the day when Toni Elias delivered an against-the-odds victory for the satellite Gresini Honda squad in Estoril by edging out Valentino Rossi by 0.002s.

But the rain, especially in the quantities that arrived in Holland on Sunday, is a great leveller – all the more so in bike racing, where the man on the saddle makes up a larger percentage of the overall package than a Grand Prix driver could ever dream of doing.

On a day where all four riders aged 30 or more crashed out, Miller – the youngest man in the field bar Maverick Vinales – didn’t let the occasion get the better of him. He kept his head, brilliantly capitalising on Marc Marquez’s sensible decision to prioritise his title ambitions over his urge to win races.

In other words, to paraphrase the man himself, Miller “rode his own race” – to the extent that, by his own admission, he was able to take it easy on the last few laps once it became apparent Marquez was not going to challenge his authority at the head of the pack.

And, unlike in Elias' case, you sense that this won’t be the only time Miller gets to stand on the top step of the podium.

Standout 2013 season

For the observant, the signs that Miller had what it takes to be a stand-out talent at the very highest level of motorcycle racing were in evidence as long ago as 2013.

That year’s MOTOCOURSE annual included Miller in its overall top 10 riders of the year list (across all three classes), described the swashbuckling then-18-year-old as “reliably the most exciting rider as he strove to make up for his machine’s deficiencies.”

The machine in question was a Honda-powered FTR run by Racing Team Germany, which at the time was badly underpowered in comparison to the KTM-engined frontrunners.

That Miller failed to get on the podium all season did nothing to take the sheen off a superb campaign, and one that effectively set him up for the big time as Honda took note.

MOTOCOURSE continued: “The main weakness [of the bike] was in acceleration: Miller’s remedy was hectically high corner speed.

“He combined this with very late braking and an epic determination to put himself up with the leaders, with increasing frequency as the year wore on.

“He paid the price for this over-riding with three race crashes, but only seemed to gain enthusiasm and determination. Among the mainly Spanish elite, he was a stand-out talent.”

Straight to the big time

While Miller briefly slipped into KTM’s grasp for a season in 2014, he was soon tempted back into the Honda fold with a three-year deal to graduate directly to MotoGP.

Not since Garry McCoy, another Australian, back in 1998 had anyone attempted such an audacious move. Some observers seemed to be expecting (even hoping for) Honda’s radical experiment to fail.

True enough, the first season didn’t go brilliantly well, despite the occasional flash of potential.

The nadir came in the wet at Silverstone, not long after LCR had shed its title sponsor CWM, when Miller piled into teammate Cal Crutchlow while the pair were running fifth and sixth.

It provided yet further ammunition to the doubters, who pointed to Miller’s weight gain at the start of the year as evidence that he was failing to take the whole thing seriously enough.

But, that was precisely why Miller had been signed on a long-term deal: to allow him to gain experience and make the inevitable mistakes of the learning process without the fear of being dropped.

And having been whipped into physical shape by Alberto Puig, Dani Pedrosa’s former mentor, the Miller of 2016 is a very different beast to the one that came before.

Fresh start at Marc VDS

Even so, Miller endured a subdued start to his sophomore campaign at Marc VDS. He struggled for pace at Jerez as he recovered from the injury that forced him to sit out Austin, he crashed out of promising positions in Argentina and France and was bowled off his bike at Turn 1 in Italy.

With only the two points that he picked up in Qatar on the board prior to Barcelona, rumours were circulating that he was in danger of being dropped by Honda a year early.

Miller’s response was to deliver the best result of his premier class career to date with 10th, providing a crucial morale boost ahead of what proved to be the biggest opportunity of his career at Assen.

It was one he grabbed with both hands, and speaking afterwards it was clear just how much his success meant after all the negativity that had been directed towards him.

“A lot of people have badmouthed us, said this project wouldn't work,” he said. “But I just hope we've showed them wrong and that I can ride a bike, that I'm not an idiot.”

Meanwhile, Suppo was eager to stress that, for all the speculation, it was always Honda’s plan to see out the final year of Honda’s deal with Miller. “The win changes nothing,” he said.

The Italian may be right in one sense, but that shouldn’t detract in any way from the magnitude of his protege’s achievement.

A new ‘alien’?

Amazingly, Miller’s Assen win puts him in an elite band of just six riders to have won races at MotoGP level on the current grid (only four of whom have won more than once).

You have to go back to 2011, when Ben Spies won at the same venue, to find the last time a premier class win was taken by someone other than one of the ‘aliens’ – that most exclusive of clubs that comprises Jorge Lorenzo, Rossi, Marquez and Pedrosa (as well as the now-retired Casey Stoner).

Much is made of who will be the next rider to become an ‘alien’, with Maverick Vinales often touted as the most likely candidate, especially now as he is off to join Rossi at Yamaha in 2017.

Miller’s chance on a top factory bike, on the other hand, is unlikely to come before 2019, so it may seem therefore like bad timing that the Aussie’s win came after all 12 factory rides for next year had already been sewn up.

But an extra two seasons on satellite machinery – either at Marc VDS or elsewhere – can only do Miller good as he continues the learning process. And by 2019, he’ll still only be 24.

Whatever happens, one thing is clear: the Assen win is just the start for a prodigious young talent who has finally come of age at the highest level.

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