Sickening crash scuppers Miller's home GP hopes

2 years ago 122

Jack Miller's hopes of a MotoGP triumph connected location ungraded were spectacularly skittled aft a sickening clang astatine Phillip Island.

In a cruel twist of fate, the mill Ducati rider was taken retired by outer Honda rider Alex Marquez astatine the country freshly renamed aft the Australian.

Marquez appeared to suffer power of his motorcycle into Miller Corner nether brakes, slamming into the backmost of the Townsville-born rider, lone narrowly missing Luca Marini.

Miller said helium was "beyond devastated'' to grounds a DNF aft a three-year hold owed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I'm alright," said Miller, who had been a race-high 3rd anterior to the incident.

"Like you say, what a mode to christen the corner. I was doing everything I could up until that point. I felt beauteous confident, beauteous comfortable. The motorcycle was moving truly well.

"I was conscionable trying to maintain, conscionable going done the motions arsenic you bash successful the mediate portion of the race, past yeah, got slammed from the rear.

"It came retired of nowhere. There was thing I could bash astir it. That's racing sometimes. That's each we tin say."

Miller precocious celebrated tieing the knot with his long-time partner, Ruby. However, his sojourn to location ungraded didn't extremity the mode helium had hoped.

"I consciousness each right," said the 27-year-old.

"I consciousness similar I've been tally implicit by a motorbike, that's for certain. No, I'm alright. The balls person copped a spot of a hiding wherever I got jammed against the vessel and the calves are a spot sore, but the remainder is each good."

It was an bonzer Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix punctuated by Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo bombing retired of contention.

A mistake astatine Miller Corner dropped him extracurricular the apical 10 and past a debased broadside astatine the Southern Loop condemned him to a DNF.

With that, the Frenchman mislaid his title pb to Miller's teammate Francesco Bagnaia.

The frenetic 27-lap matter was won by Alex Rins successful an instant classic.

Bagnaia led the closing laps of the contention lone to cede archetypal and 2nd to Rins and Marc Marquez.

On the mill Suzuki, Rins was resilient successful defence and held disconnected the mill Honda rider Marquez.

In the end, conscionable 0.8s covered the apical 7 riders.

With 3rd place, Bagnaia turned a three-point shortage into a 14-point vantage implicit Quartararo.

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