Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Jack Miller diligently worked through a range of set-up options and different Michelin tyre combinations on Friday to enhance his prospects of a points scoring finish in Sunday's Austrian MotoGP round.
Miller was just over a second off the best pace in an incredibly close opening practice in the morning, which took part on a dry track, despite the constant threat of rain coming from grey and gloomy skies over the spectacular Spielberg track.
The afternoon's second session commenced on a track that was almost completely dry, but damp patches at the tight turn 3 that resulted from a short earlier downpour prevented Miller from carrying out any meaningful early set-up work on his Honda RC213V machinery.
Once the track was totally dry and ready for slick tyres, Miller was able to improve his pace compared to the morning, while gaining crucial information on potential tyre choice ahead of Sunday's 28-lap Spielberg showdown.
The picturesque Spielberg track is dominated by hard braking zones, high-speed straights and demanding acceleration points, and it is a lack of corner exit grip that Miller will seek to improve as the weekend progresses.
“Coming to this track we knew it was going to be a difficult challenge for us with the circuit dominated by hard acceleration points, which is not the strong point of our package,” Jack said.
“We are doing our best to extract the maximum we can out of what we have got and I think we have done that. My rhythm is not too bad but we can see from the lap times and my position that it is not fast enough right now. We'll be back tomorrow for another go but we have to make some improvements to have a good qualifying.”
