Jack Miller says he is now confident on a KTM after finishing fourth in the Sprint race at the Portuguese MotoGP round.
The Queenslander has made the move to Red Bull KTM Factory Racing after five years with Ducati, kicking off his first race weekend at his new team with a lap record in Friday practice.
He was also in the hunt for pole position until a crash in qualifying saw him bumped to fifth on the grid, but then led the first ever MotoGP Sprint race.
“I didn’t get the best of starts,” admitted #43.
“To be honest, I couldn’t really hear my RPM with the other bikes around. I let the clutch out a little bit too quick, killed the RPM and got swallowed, but I was able to fight through and it was a lot of fun.
“With this bike I feel confident now; on the last day of the test and rolling on from that through Friday and Saturday here we’ve been able to find even more confidence with the front. Even though I dumped it in Q2, that was simply my own fault.
“You’ll have seen in that race I could charge forward and make overtaking moves when I could.
“The bike’s got great grip, even with the soft-soft [Michelin] tyre combination – generally the KTM never uses the soft front and we made it work for the 12-lapper.”
The performance was in stark contrast to off-season testing, including at Portimao, with Miller quipping, “95 percent of the people on the internet thought it was going to be shit.”
Asked what was behind the turnaround, he responded, “Nothing. Testing is testing, racing is racing.
“That’s what we’re here for; I’m here to be a racer.
“I’m not going to go and risk life and limb when we have a race 10 days later.”
However, ‘Jackass’ then went on to identify where KTM has improved the RC16 package.
“The biggest thing’s been the electronics for sure,” he declared.
“I essentially hopped on this bike in Valencia [2022 post-season test] and could’ve ridden this bike with an on-off switch for a throttle, instead of a throttle on a tube.
“You couldn’t use the throttle like you should and now we can ride the bike more like a normal bike.
“In terms of engine braking… I don’t know if you can see with the KTM but the thing is like this [sideways] into the corner.
“They’ve been able to give me the sliding performance, but with the deceleration like a bike that is dead straight. It’s not locking and slipping so it’s good.”
Miller will start the Grand Prix race from fifth position, with qualifying setting the grid for both encounters under the new-for-2023 event format.
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