Jack Miller says staying “calm” and “humble” will be key if he is to challenge for the 2022 MotoGP title after finishing fourth in challenging conditions at Mandalika.
Miller was an early leader of a race which had been delayed by more than an hour due to a thunderstorm which lashed the island of Lombok on which the circuit is located.
However, he came to struggle for edge grip on his Ducati Lenovo Team entry, ceding position to eventual winner Miguel Oliveira on Lap 5, Fabio Quartararo on Lap 16, and Johann Zarco on Lap 17 of 20.
Still, after an electronics problem cost him a finish at Lusail, the Queenslander was staring down the barrel of two scoreless rounds to start the season, an untenable outcome.
His 13 points from a possible 50 so far is hardly stellar, nor is the 11th position he occupies in the standings, but he is only 17 points from top spot.
Notably, Marc Marquez is on just 11 points after a monster highside in the Warm Up saw him ruled out of the Indonesia race, and conceivably others given his recent injury history.
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Furthermore, Miller’s team-mate Francesco Bagnaia has just the one point to his name, and the man who wants his factory Ducati seat, Jorge Martin, does not have any at all after crashing out at Mandalika.
On the other hand, Gresini Racing’s Enea Bastianini finished only 11th in Indonesia yet still leads the championship, with the maximum six distinct riders having finished on the podium so far this year.
Writing in his regular post-round column, Miller noted, “Everyone seems like they’re a contender now.
“So, it’s about being calm for me. Last year, finishing fourth in the championship – seems a few people out there have forgot about that, but it is what it is – anyway, I got a lot of experience and gained some things.
“So, be calm, be humble, keep your head down and chip away.
“That’s the way to build a season and why days like today are so important.”
To that point, the final result at Mandalika was superficially surprising considering Miller is a noted rain master.
However, he decided it was too risky to seriously fight Quartararo, despite the lure of a podium and the possibility of any lingering red mist with the Frenchman over an earlier run-in about which they traded barbs through the media.
“When Fabio and then Johann came past me there was only about four laps to go and I thought about how and where I’d be able to attack Johann, but then I had a moment when my foot came off the pegs and decided to play it smart and just tried to get home,” recounted ‘Jackass’.
“Coming into this race with no points on the board definitely entered my thinking. In the end, 13 points are better than another zero and me sitting in a wet gravel trap, so there was no point throwing myself off.
“Be tidy, get it home, live to fight another day. There’s 19 races to go and a lot can happen, we saw that today with some guys who were up the front in Qatar well down the pack here and the other way around.”
Round 3 is the Argentina Grand Prix at Termas de Rio Hondo on April 1-3 (local time).
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