Jack Miller saw his 2019 MotoGP opener ended prematurely by a strange broken seat on his Pramac Ducati having felt confident of fighting for the podium in Qatar.
The Australia rider was in the thick of the front-running action on the second lap when his seat broke on his GP19, forcing him to throw it off his bike while racing, which ultimately triggered his retirement from the race.
Miller had to majorly adjust his riding style due to his unstable position on the bike which punished the edge grip of his tyres having to use more lean angle, before opting to return to his garage due to the unsafe handling of his Pramac Ducati.
The former MotoGP race-winner felt he could have battled for the podium at Losail before his seat issue and explained how the bizarre incident was triggered by his seat unsticking to the painted subframe.
“The seat is glued to the subframe and the subframe is painted and the paint didn’t stick well enough,” Miller said. “The glue ripped the seat and the paint off. I was going through the fast sequence of the right handers, the first one was good, the second one I almost fell off the inside of the bike because the seat broke and then I felt the seat clip back in as it is fitted. I thought it was okay.
“But then at the next one bang it fell off again so I made it through the next left hander and looked down to see the seat was twisted. I grabbed it and threw it but essentially once the paint and seat had been ripped off the carbon itself is like ice and our asses have got no grip on them.
“I was trying to manage it as best I could, trying to stay with the guys, but by the time I threw the seat off I was outside the top 10.
5774263478001
“The problem was I wasn’t able to enter the corners, I would go in but my butt would slide to the outside of the seat rather than gripping so I wasn’t able to get my shoulders out so I had to sit very centrally on the bike and use a lot of lean angle.
“Doing that I destroyed the edge of the front tyre and I started to get a lot of understeer, especially in the fast corners, then a lot of chatter and a lot of understeer just because I was using 60 degrees lean angle when you normally use 47 degrees.
“In the end I decided, when Nakagami and Aleix got back past me, to pull in which was the safer option because I was probably going to crash.
“I am happy anyway as it was still a solid weekend and I felt I could really fight for the podium and we were showing that until the seat fell off.
“Even when the seat fell off I was on a bike that wasn’t handling but I was still able to stay with the front group. I think it shows we have good speed.”
Miller suffered a big crash during his final run in qualifying which destroyed one of his two Pramac Ducati bikes, forcing a complete rebuild according to the Australian, but it isn’t clear if the qualifying crash and subsequent rebuild is linked to the faulty seat unit.
