Miller is under pressure to retain a seat with the Austrian marque given his poor start to the 2024 season, based on his own admissions and recent commentary from KTM Motorsports Director Pit Beirer before the previous round of the season in Catalunya.
He did his chances no good by then crashing out of the grand prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, falling from 13th to 15th in the championship over the course of the weekend.
Pressed on his future on the eve of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, the Queenslander affirmed that he would “of course” accept a seat next year at GasGas Tech3, which is officially a satellite team but functions essentially as an extension of Red Bull KTM.
“I’ve said that all along, he remarked.
“I firmly believe Tech3 isn’t a satellite team anymore, it’s basically a factory bike that’s red. And we know that.
“Like I said, I didn’t sign up to this job to see it out after two years and not reap the benefits, you know what I mean?
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“These projects take time. And I think that’s what we’re doing at the moment. And that’s why you have these highs and lows, is you’re building something good.
“My understanding of the bike and trying to improve the bike has never gone away from that, and my work outside of the track has never faded. [If anything] I’m working harder now than I ever f***ing have.
“I love the guys at KTM, I think they’ve done a fantastic job in such a short amount of time.
“Obviously, I think we’ve got four fantastic riders, and if they need to reshuffle, then they reshuffle and keep going.”
Miller and GasGas incumbent Augusto Fernandez are under the pump after Beirer told a German outlet that their performances are “a little bit lacking … for a MotoGP seat.”
Red Bull KTM incumbent Brad Binder is safe in so much that he is already contracted for 2025 and has outperformed team-mate Miller anyway.
The logical course of action would be to re-sign generational talent Acosta, the best-performing of KTM’s four riders thus far in what is his rookie MotoGP season, and promote him to the KTM team itself.
Miller clearly agrees, but insists he is deserving of a ride on an RC16 because of what he brings to the table with his development prowess.
When put to him that rival riders would gladly take his seat, the former Ducati Team pilot replied, “Means we’re doing something right.
“Means I’m doing something right because, two years ago, nobody wanted this job.
“And I quit probably, arguably, the best bike on the grid to come over to this job.
“Now it’s quite a contested seat, so I think we’ve done a good job so far. And we’ll continue to get better and better.”
That argument is somewhat disingenuous, even if Miller was the first piece of the Ducati silly season puzzle to fall into place during 2022 when his defection to KTM was announced in June.
He is thought to have been offered a demotion back to Pramac Racing, analogous to the KTM/GasGas scenario potentially facing him now.
However, ‘Thriller’ had already admitted that replacing him at the factory Ducati Team with Enea Bastianini “makes sense” and the Bologna marque decided just that in August 2022.
When it was suggested to Miller that the KTM RC16 probably was not as strong two years ago as it is now, he bluntly responded, “Not ‘probably’; it wasn’t.
“So I think, yes, my contribution has been enough. And it will continue to be.
“Obviously I didn’t sign up for this project to leave after two years. That’s not my intention.
“Whether or not that’ll be the way it’ll be, whether or not a demotion or whatever…
“Obviously, I understand the situation is they have an extremely fast rookie, and honestly I would be pissed off in KTM’s position if they managed to lose him. So, I understand they need to do what they do.
“But we’ve made massive headway in this project, and I think we continue to build this bike to be the one that’ll stop the red machine [Ducati].”
Practice at Mugello starts this evening (AEST).
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