Qatar MotoGP: Jack Miller forced out as bike 'gets lost', becomes 'foreign'

Jack Miller's factory Ducati gets 'lost' during the Qatar MotoGP; 'Over the back part of the track it would give me a massive burst of throttle, then I'd almost get run up the arse out of the last corner'.
Jack Miller, Qatar MotoGP race, 6 March 2022
Jack Miller, Qatar MotoGP race, 6 March 2022
© Gold and Goose

An elect💫ronics issue caused Jack Miller's factory Ducati to get 'lost' during Sunday's Qatar MotoGP.

Qualifying fourth and confident in his race pace, Miller looked set to play a starring role in 🍎the season opener and erase last year's ninth place disappointment.

But the behaviour of his GP22 became 'foreign' from th🌠e start, dropping him to tenth on lap 1 and 16th on lap 6, after which he retired.

The problem described by Miller, and fitti♌ng with the term 'lost', suggests his Ducati's engine management became out of sync with his actual location on the 𒈔race track.

Things like power delivery are tuned corner-by-corner so that, ღfor example, 50% throttle during a change of direction will provide a different level of power to 50% throttle on the main straight.

The problem seems to be that Miller's bike was providing 'full' main straight power in twisty sectionsജ and then a soft delivery on the straight.

"From the get-go the bike wasn't fantastic, there was something missing in the electronics," Miller explained. "The bike was quite lost, let's🌄 say. I had 100% power in some very stran🧸ge points of the track, and then coming onto the front straight, I had no power.

"I had to go to fourth gear pretty much directly out of the last corner. ♑Everybody was passing me. I honestly thought I was going to get run up the arse, simply because I was that slow.

"I tried everything I could, swapped from [engine] map A to B to C, system on, system off. Tried my best, but nothing. At one point, especially over the back part of the track, it kept firing me in-between corners, it would give me a massive burst of𝓰 throttle.

"Of course my throttle is open, but I'm not expecting that. And then also the fear of almost getting run up the a♌rse every time I came out of the last corner, because I'm on the racing line and not accelerating.

"I just dec♉ided it was better to just pull in💞. So, not a great day.

"The bike was foreign, let's say. Very forei♓gn. It is what it is. We k⭕now the issue, we know what happened. It's unfortunate, and hopefully it won't happen again."

Team-mate and title runner-up Francesco Bagnaia completed🉐 a night to forget for the factory Ducati team when he fell and took down Pramac's Jorge Martin.

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