Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Jack Miller overcame hot and humid temperatures and a dirty and slippery track surface to play a starring role on the opening day of MotoGP action in Argentina.
Much of this morning‰Ûªs FP1 was spent waiting for grip levels on the greasy 4.608km track to improve, with no racing activity taking place at the Termas de Rio Hondo venue since last December.
Australian Miller coped exceptionally well with the less than ideal grip levels to set the benchmark time for a period in FP1 before he ended the opening 45-minute session in eighth.
That was just a sign of things to come though from the impressive 21-year-old, who put in a sensational performance in FP2 to improve his pace by almost two seconds. A best lap of 1.42.375 was only bettered by Marc Marquez, Dani Pedrosa and Maverick Vinales on a great opening day for Honda, who occupied four of the top five places on the combined leaderboard.
With stormy weather forecast for tomorrow, Miller‰Ûªs outstanding performance could already be good enough to have secured him an all-important place in Q2.
‰ÛÏI am really happy with how today went," Miller said. "The bike seems to be working very well here. It is not only the fact that I‰Ûªm fast, but I am also consistent and strong on used tyres.
"Conditions are changing lap-by-lap but I‰Ûªve been able to adjust and I just hope now that we can build on this to have a strong weekend. The only close call I had was when I nearly ran into the back of Valentino Rossi at turn eight. He braked a little later and I thought I had more stopping power and we touched a little. I thought I might clean him out, but luckily it didn‰Ûªt happen!"
Main Photo: Jack Miller
