Ducati Lenovo’s Jack Miller stormed the times at MotorLand Aragón on Friday, topping MotoGP free practice with a 1’47.613.

The Australian launched the time attack in the closing stages of the hot afternoon session, circulating just under three-tenths faster than Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and his good friend Cal Crutchlow.

“The old fella still goes all right, I think he did pretty good,” Miller joked about the Yamaha rider’s returning form. “He's getting his feet back. I think, getting more comfortable and shows that that Yamaha is working pretty well.”

Reflecting on the progress made with his Desmosedici, in comparison to last year’s double visit, the Australian admitted he could certainly feel it. “For sure here, corners like corner 10 and then the last two corners is fantastic, you really noticed the big difference,” he explained.

“We're still struggling a little bit with setup, just little things but these corners where you have long, really long time on lean angle and you're trying to keep a neutral position on the gas or even slowly winding it on, the bike continues to turn more than before. Whereas before, you would have to play a little bit, either roll off the edge of the tyre or you start to go wide. So, immediately from the first laps today I understood 'this is nice' and yeah, we can take advantage of this for sure.

“It's got to be in the chassis. Chassis, swingarm that sort of set up. The way that the bike's developed, I don't think there's a certain area exactly, one piece, because if it was you know we would have fixed it a long time ago.

"I think it's a combination of everything, and the way that the bike has been developed over the last few years and even engine character, the way that the engine is working. So I think it's hard to say exactly what piece it is, but for sure I'm not complaining about it that's for certain.”

Miller had a strong showing in the BritishGP but despite not exactly sparkling throughout the weekend, he knew he had it in the tank.

“I still believe in my potential. It's true one way or another we weren't able to put it together over the weekend so I was getting frustrated with that more than anything. Then to be able to put a strong race together in Silverstone even after maybe not the best qualifying and still charge through at the end, I was really, really happy with that.

“That was a really a nice feeling to have, to know that you are doing right, your training right and doing the correct things to be there at the end of the race. So hopefully same again this weekend.

“Over the one lap, it's not too bad but just on the pace it seems that the bike's a little nervous, Miller admitted on Friday’s performance in Spain. “Then the one thing we did try today sort of hindered the front feeling that I had.

“Here is a place where you kinda need that contact because there's a lot of corners were you don't really enter with too much weight on the front end. So I think that's the area we're gonna try to work on for tomorrow. We tried something today that wasn't the right direction so back to the drawing board tonight.

“I think we'll be right. I’ll work on my pace for sure but I show many, many times that what the practice pace is and what I can do in the race is always a little bit different. For sure, I would have liked to have done a few more 48's today and I think I had the pace in the afternoon but when we swapped to the other bike I seem to struggle a little bit more and as I said we made a step in the wrong direction and it just hindered my confidence. Now we go back and we will try to work on that for tomorrow."