Jack Miller has expressed concerns about Silverstone’s Stowe wall in the MotoGP Safety Commission after crashing in Free Practice 2 for the British Grand Prix.
Miller lost the front of his Ducati at the end of the Hangar Straight midway through the session and tumbled all the way to the wall.
The Queenslander believes that the barriers are too close for comfort, and considers himself somewhat lucky that his Desmosedici did not hit him.
He suggested an airfence may help address the problem.
“It’s close; I’ll be bringing it up in the Safety Commission,” said Miller.
“I went into the gravel sliding backwards and I lost all sort of sense of direction of where I was.
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“Then I just sort of went headfirst into the ground, sort of bent my wrists back, and then as I flipped over, I hit the wall and then bounced back off the wall.
“So, I made it to the wall and the bike was [lying] right next to me.
“I crashed kinda early-ish on the brakes, I saw, for example, [Darryn] Binder go down and he didn’t quite make it to the wall, but then [Johann] Zarco did, some of the other guys did.
“So especially if there’s contact or whatever, it’s something that needs to be looked at, I think, in the future, because it is pretty scary.
“I also had a bit of a moment in there this morning and just trying to stop the bike before going in the gravel, even though you’ve got that run-off area, it’s pretty tight.
“[Jonas] Folger had his big moment there and sort of slammed the wall some years ago. I remember that.
“I was lucky, but if the bike’s followed me in, it’s going to be a different story.
“There’s no airbag on it where I hit, so whether or not airbags need to be put around [the tyre wall] a bit further…
“We’ll discuss it this afternoon and try to come up with a solution.”
As Miller noted, he was hardly the only rider to go off at Stowe, and attributed the spate of crashes to a crosswind.
‘Jackass’ is ninth-fastest after the first two of three practice sessions which decide the order for qualifying, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo quickest.
MotoGP action at Silverstone resumes this evening (AEST).
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