The Australian would already have been under pressure given he is 13th in the championship after Round 5 of a contract year.
However, that Spanish sensation Pedro Acosta is living up to the hype in his rookie season has led to rumours that KTM might make a Max Verstappen-style swap between the 2023 Moto2 champion and Miller.
KTM Motorsports Director Pit Beirer recently dismissed that prospect in an interview with German media, but he did use that forum to declared that “the current performances of Jack and Augusto [Fernandez, GasGas] are a little bit lacking at the moment for a MotoGP seat.”
Speaking in Barcelona ahead of this weekend’s Catalan Grand Prix, ‘Jackass’ said, “Obviously, if I could put those contract negotiations on hold, I’d love to, and put some decent results on the board to help my chances.
“But we can’t. There is chatter going on.
“I am focused on doing the best I can, get decent results, put points on the board.
Secure your spot today.
“And let the powers that be do the negotiating.
“All I can do is what I’ve been doing, working hard through the week to get this ball rolling, which has been stubborn.”
One of the Red Bull KTM seats appears already taken in 2025 given incumbent Brad Binder’s contract stretches beyond the current season, even if his deal theoretically gives the Austrian marque the option of shunting the South African to GasGas Tech3.
Acosta is in pole position for the other ride at the orange team, with negotiations on a contract renewal thought to be well-advanced, although Jorge Martin was also the subject of rumours in their native Spain that KTM might make a play at bringing him back from the Ducati ranks.
Miller could quite conceivably be offered a new contract which sees him demoted to GasGas, but he has now also been linked to Honda.
The Queenslander admitted he has not met his own expectations so far in 2024.
“Only really having the two P5s in Portimao is not what I was aiming for by this part of the season,” he remarked.
“These are the cards we were dealt. We just keep rolling with the punches.
Miller added, “Fingers crossed we can find our feet.
“We had decent speed all weekend [in Le Mans] but, in the Sprint and the main Race, we weren’t able to keep the bike in the window.
“The biggest thing for me is understanding how we can make the grip window bigger.
“When we’ve got grip, the bike works well. As soon as I get out of that window, I suffer more and lap time is harder to come by.
“Here, it is considerably low on grip. We found big steps last year on the Sunday. Looking back at the data, what we learned last year, we’ve got a rough ballpark of where we need to be, in terms of set-up.
“We use the rear end of the bike to stop the bike. When I suffer with grip, I struggle to stop the bike. I can’t use the strong braking point.”
Chattering could be a concern for the RC16 if grip is down.
Miller explained, “It depends. In Jerez, when the grip came up – it was high on Sunday compared to Saturday – it seemed to rear its head.
“It will be interesting to see here how the new rear tyre casing gets on with a traditionally very hard rear tyre track.”
Meanwhile, Martin has also been linked to Aprilia Racing, which has a vacancy in light of the retirement of Aleix Espargaro.
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