Miller declares 2022 his strongest MotoGP season

Jack Miller believes 2022 is “probably [his] strongest season” in MotoGP despite failing to match his final result in 2021.

Miller finished fourth last year, his first with the factory Ducati Lenovo Team, before ending up fifth in the just-completed campaign.

He also scored only one victory this year, compared to two in the season prior, but pointed to the dominant nature of the victory at Motegi weeks ago as reason for his assessment.

The Queenslander also cited the greater number of podiums, having taken seven from 20 rounds versus five from 18 for  a greater strike rate.

That said, his points per round was down slightly, with 189 this year equating to an average of 9.45, compared a total of 181 last year and average of 10.06.

“I finished fourth last year in the championship and fifth this time, but this has probably been my strongest season,” wrote Miller in his post-Valencia Grand Prix blog.

“Most podiums I’ve ever had, and definitely my best MotoGP win in Japan.

“Especially after the Catalunya test [in June] the results have been really strong, apart from the mistakes here and at Misano and then getting cleaned out at Phillip Island.

“Apart from those ones, it’s been pretty solid and I’m really happy with how the second half finished off for me, even if we couldn’t sign it off how I wanted to here.”

Miller crashed out of the last race of the year while running fourth on Lap 23 around the Circuit Ricardo Tormo.

He explained that he was pushing himself in a bid to pinch third in the championship, an endeavour which required no less than the race win in order to succeed.

“Sucks to crash out of a chance for a podium with only five laps left, but I tried my best and that’s all you can do,” stated #43.

“I was pushing hard because I knew Aleix [Espargaro] was out of the race and a win would have seen me jump him for third in the championship, but you saw what happened.”

In the end, he took fifth by just a single point from Brad Binder, who moved on to 188 by finishing second on the day.

They will be team-mates next season at Red Bul KTM Factory Racing, with Miller to ride an RC16 for the first time tomorrow at the Valencia post-season test.