Red Bull KTM’s Jack Miller said he had no issues with Francesco Bagnaia after the Ducati rider’s aggressive overtake in Sunday’s Spanish GP in Jerez.
Miller was holding second place behind team-mate Brad Binder when Bagnaia came through on his inside at Turn 6, causing the Australian to stand his KTM up to avoid a collision.
“Pecco had that little penalty with me and had to drop a position, and then he managed to make his way through on me, closed in that gap on Brad and then got past him, which is no easy feat itself,” Miller said.
“I was on the racing line and whether or not the penalty needed to be there, I don’t know. Pecco said that he had some locking coming in there with the slipstream or whatever, and he had to kind of go to the inside.
“I felt like I was on the line and I was really lucky that I just seen a big, bright red front-end of a thing coming underneath me and I was able to stand it up in time, and not have a Lorenzo-Dovi kind of incident there.
“I wasn’t obviously happy at the time, I gave it a wave and whatever, but it’s racing and we’ll complain and whinge a little bit, and then we’ll get back to work,” he added.
“That’s what I was doing, setting my pace to get back past first and foremost [Jorge] Martin, and then try and catch back up to Pecco.”
Bagnaia was handed a one-place penalty for the move and had to slow to allow Miller back into second place, but he later went on to win the race after re-passing Miller and edging out Binder in a thrilling conclusion to the 24-lap encounter at Round 4 of the championship.
Miller, who repeated his third place finish from the Sprint race, had waved his arm at Bagnaia in anger following the near-miss, but afterwards he said there were no hard feelings, adding: “It’s racing.”
Miller, though, said the FIM Stewards needed to show greater consistency across the board when it comes to handing down penalties.
“If they want to give the penalty, give the penalty, but the thing is it’s got to be happening to the guys that are in 15th as well,” he said.
“If there’s stupid stuff going on back there as well, it needs to be penalised as well.”
Reflecting on the race, ‘Jackass’ admitted he felt for team-mate Binder after the South African was denied a double by Bagnaia following his Sprint success on Saturday.
“It wasn’t to be today and the boys rode a fantastic race – it was a long, gruelling race out there, trying to manage the tyres, trying to manage the front end,” Miller said.
“Brad, I’m gutted for him because to lead that many laps and not come away with the big one is tough, but he rode awesome and didn’t really put a foot wrong all race.
“It was an awesome weekend for us in the team and started off strong with Dani [Pedrosa] leading FP1, it’s been awesome and to be here already at Round 4 is really nice.”
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