Inside Jack Miller’s ‘rock-bottom’ MotoGP season start and how he can turn things around
Jack Miller came into the MotoGP season with a point to prove and a contract to earn, with the Australian’s two-year deal with Austrian manufacturer KTM expiring at the end of 2024.
Just four Grands Prix into a crucial campaign, the 29-year-old is, by his own admission, “at rock-bottom”.
Nearing the one-quarter mark of the year, Miller is off to his worst start statistically to a season since he was a MotoGP rookie in 2015 – and time is running out.
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With just 14 points from four Grands Prix – 22 points in all, if you include his meagre returns from a quartet of sprint races at each round – Miller sits 14th in the championship standings after last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, where he failed to score a point and was left livid after being taken out by Ducati rider Franco Morbidelli as the pair squabbled for crumbs on the fringes of the top 10.
WHAT’S GONE WRONG?
It would be easier to list what hasn’t gone awry for the Australian in 2024, which began with a lap two tip-off in the opening Grand Prix in Qatar before he remounted and finished last, in 21st place and 42 seconds behind the race-winner and reigning world champion, Francesco Bagnaia.
Round two in Portugal provided some respite with fifth, but Miller’s best points haul of the year came with an asterisk after he’d lost places to KTM teammate Brad Binder and rising Spanish star Pedro Acosta (GasGas) to spend most of the race in eighth, moving forward late as Bagnaia and Marc Marquez fell ahead of him, and Maverick Vinales had his gearbox seize and was spat off his Aprilia on the final lap.
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Miller stormed to third on the first lap from 11th on the grid at the Americas GP before tyre wear woes consigned him to a 13th-place result, and then came the pain of Spain, where he’d finished third for his best result of his maiden KTM campaign 12 months previously.
At Jerez, Miller started from a season-worst 15th after KTM’s mechanics couldn’t affix his rear wheel in time to begin qualifying, crashed from the sprint race on the opening lap before finishing 14th, and then was pinballed by Morbidelli in the Grand Prix proper.
“I’ve been saying this a lot recently, but obviously not the day we wanted,” he said in Jerez.
“I got away to a decent start and tried to go with the boys at the front, and felt pretty comfortable until about lap four when the pace got upped a little bit more and I just couldn’t run it.
“I was trying my best to stay with them, but I was at my limit. Franky [Morbidelli] decided he wanted to make a gap where there was no room, and it resulted in us both having an early shower.
“I don’t know if I’ve run over a black cat or walked under a ladder … but we’re just struggling to get luck turning our way.”
WHAT DO THE NUMBERS TELL US?
Miller’s paltry stats for this season elicit a sharp intake of breath, as the Australian is off to the third-worst start in his decade-long MotoGP career. Miller had averaged 26 points across the first four Grands Prix of a season before 2024, and had at least one podium finish in the opening four races of five different campaigns.
Jack Miller’s first four races, year by year
2021/Ducati (39 points): Best qualifying 3rd (Spain), best race 1st (Spain)
2020/Ducati (36): Best qualifying 2nd (Austria), best race 3rd (Austria)
2018/Ducati (36): Best qualifying 1st (Argentina), best race 4th (Argentina)
2023*/KTM (35): Best qualifying 2nd (Spain), best race 3rd (Spain)
2022/Ducati (31): Best qualifying 2nd (Americas), best race 3rd (Americas)
2019/Ducati (29): Best qualifying 4th (Americas), best race 3rd (Americas)
2017/Honda (21): Best qualifying 10th (Spain), best race 8th (Qatar)
2024*/KTM (14): Best qualifying 5th (Portugal), best race 5th (Portugal)
2015/Honda (6): Best qualifying 19th (Americas), best race 14th (Americas)
2016**/Honda (2): Best qualifying 15th (Argentina), best race 14th (Qatar)
(* Stats include full-distance Grands Prix only, not sprint races)
(** Three races: Miller missed Round 3/Americas with injury)
WHAT’S THE WAY OUT?
Qualifying better would be a start; Miller qualified inside the front two rows of the grid nine times in 20 races last year, but just once this season.
Why that’s important? Track position. With modern-day MotoGP machines able to brake ever-later, increased parity among the five competing motorcycle manufacturers and with the various aerodynamic winglets affixed to the bikes spiking the tyre temperatures of riders running immediately behind a rival, overtaking in races has become harder than ever.
Being buried in the pack at the start has become a web that’s nearly impossible to escape from, and just four Grands Prix of the past 24 since the beginning of last season have been won from outside the first two rows of the grid (top six).
Bagnaia won from seventh in Spain last time out and from 13th in Indonesia last year, while Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro won last year’s British Grand Prix from 12th. Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati) went from seventh on the grid in France last year to the top step, aided by five riders who qualified ahead of him crashing out.
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Miller has just one top-six start all season (Portugal) and is yet to finish a race higher than he started, while he’s been out-qualified three times in four Grands Prix by Acosta and twice by Binder, riders on the same machinery.
Better in-race tyre management – Miller’s reputation is of a rider who goes too hard, too early and has little rubber left to fight with late in races – would undoubtedly help, too. A clean weekend free from mechanical gremlins and procedural potholes would assist in rebuilding his shaken confidence.
WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
After one of the most impressive starts to a MotoGP career in history, Acosta’s ascension to KTM’s main team in Miller’s place was discussed as early as round three in Texas, where the manufacturer’s motorsport director Pit Bierer was asked whether he’d consider switching his riders between the KTM and GasGas-branded squads during 2024.
“Pedro’s achievements are an absolute highlight but no, that is not an option for us,” Bierer told German publication Motorsport Magazin.
“All four of our riders in MotoGP have factory contracts, so you are not tied to a specific team. From a contractual point of view, there is no hurdle to changing anything. It is still completely absurd to think about such changes during the season.”
Miller isn’t oblivious to the paddock chatter, and knows what he has to do to stop the rot.
“I’ve been at rock-bottom before, and fingers crossed we’re at it now and we can build back up,” he said in Spain.
“We understand the issues and we know where we need to improve, it’s just a matter of putting it all together.
“I keep saying this week-in, week-out, but I feel like we’re so close, yet so far. We just haven’t had that one thing to put us over the line. We’ll stick at it, myself and the team, and it will come.”