Wildlife conspires against Jack Miller on Australia MotoGP Saturday
Rabbit st꧅rike hinders🐬 Miller’s qualifying, while sprint complicated after hitting seagull
Jack Miller’s Saturday at the 2024 MotoGP Australian Grand Prix was severely hindered by several wildlife strikes in qual✃ifying and the sprint.
The KTM rider had to go 🍒through the Q1 session on Saturday morning, but couldn’t advance on 16th after a rabbit strike left his RC16 fairing with damage.
Then in the sprint, Miller hit a seagull on the opening lap at Turn 1 which left a “gapin🅺g hole” on the right side of his front fairing.
Jack 0 - Seagull 1 or is it the other way around? 💥😅 Got a decent start in the Sprint, but a seagull hit the front of the bike… not ideal 🤦♂️ Felt good though, but the bike gave way into Turn 10. One of those days! Looking forward to t✤omorrow 🤟
— Jack Miller (@jackmilleraus)
The dead bird got wedged between the fairing and the brake lever, while the dama🐬ge to his bike le🃏d to a severe drop in straightline speed.
The Australian was🐟 able to m🅠ake his way up to eighth despite all of this, before a “nothing crash” ended his race on lap eight of 13.
“It could have been a better Saturday,ꦦ” Miller began.
“I had a good start in the Sprint from a not-great qualifying position and tipping 🐠into Turn 1 off the start𒀰 a seagull flew into the front of the bike, which wasn’t ideal.
“I tried to do what I could on the first lap to get rid of it📖 but I couldn’t so I focused on the job at hand, which was racing and it was going good.I felt comfortable and happy, the tyre was almost getting better and better
Hꦏe added: “Pace was good. We were lacking about 10km/h with the big gaping hole in the front of the bike.
“I was ♑able to keep pushing. After the good start I was able to make some more passes, and unfortunately I just passed Frankie [Morbidelli] and Brad [Binder], then binned it at Turn 10.
“It was a nothing c♔rash, kind of the same speed I was doing the l💯ap before.
“As soon as I released ෴the brakes sheꦕ went away from me. So, gutted about that but happy with the speed and we’ll try to regroup and have another strong one tomorrow.”
The sprint proved disastrous for KTM, with Brad Binder crashing out late on as well as Tech3 rookie Pedro Acosta, who suffered a nasty highside and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:could 𒐪be in doubt for th♐e grand prix.
On his crash, Acosta - who struggled to 15th on the grid and couldn’t make much progress in the spr🌊int - said: “A hard day on the Island and hard to say much.
“We didn’t have ⭕many dry laps to make steps and impro🐲ve but this morning was not too bad.
“This afternoon was noꦿt easy but we’ll t♍ry to relax, think about the performance for tomorrow and how I wake up tomorrow morning.”
Augusto Fernandez was the only KTM rider to see the💝 chequered flag, with the Tech3 rider nin🦩th for his best sprint result since the Spanish GP.
