Neither Miller nor his teammate Augusto Fernandez finished the fourth race of the season.
The Australian crashed his Yamaha YZR-M1 midway through the 22-lap race and tried to rejoin but was ultimately forced to retire.
Speaking post-race, Miller said he began to feel a vibration from the rear end of his bike on Lap 9 before the bike fell from beneath him. Fernandez, meanwhile, crashed on Lap 13.
Even though Miller failed to finish, he offered an optimistic view heading to Jerez in Spain.
“That was the best I‘d felt all weekend – the bike was working well, until it suddenly wasn‘t,” Miller explained, having finished 19th in the Tissot Sprint a day earlier.
“My rhythm was strong, and I was feeling pretty comfortable catching back up to the group ahead.
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“I switched the [engine] map, and then just before the crash, coming into Turn 15 on what could have been my best lap, the bike suddenly started vibrating violently at the rear, so much so that my legs came off the pegs.
“I had to slow down, and even then my time was a 1:53.9s. Martin passed me, and I followed him into Turn 1, but at Turn 2, another left-hander, as soon as I leaned in, I lost the front.
“I managed to keep the bike up with my elbow, but when I pushed in deeper, it started vibrating again. I was off-line and onto the dirty part of the track, and the bike just slid out from under me.
“We saw very clearly in the data that something changed from one lap to the next. Why, we don‘t know. The tyre looked fine, everything seemed okay, so we need to understand more about what happened.
“Honestly, it ended the way the whole weekend had been going. I‘m happy to be heading to Jerez – I think this bike will work well there.”
Fabio Quartararo remains Yamaha’s best rider at the moment. The Frenchman is eighth in the championship on 30 points. Miler is the next best in 15th (19 points) ahead of the other factory Yamaha rider Alex Rins (14 points). Marc Marquez is the runaway lead on 123 points after just four events with the factory Ducati team.
Gino Borsoi, Pramac Yamaha team director, said the Italian squad would be taking a thorough look at the Qatar weekend and what went wrong.
“It has been a tough weekend, ending with both riders retiring due to crashes,” said Borsoi.
“Our engineers will now analyze the data to fully understand what exactly happened.
“Fortunately, Jack and Augusto escaped without any consequences from the incidents, but of course, this isn‘t the way we wanted to finish the event.
“As a team, we didn‘t achieve the results we were aiming for, although we did find extra motivation in the significant progress Yamaha has made so far.
“We‘re working together, putting all our energy into getting back to the top positions as soon as possible.
“We now have a one-week break before the first European round of the season in Jerez, and we have some homework to do to make sure we arrive fully prepared.”
Pramac won the 2024 riders’ championship with Jorge Martin and Ducati. This year is the team’s first with Yamaha.
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