Ducati’s Jack Miller got his CatalanGP underway in seventh after focusing on race pace throughout Friday’s two MotoGP practice sessions.

Navigating the Barcelona circuit’s legendary low grip and altered layout, the Australian was satisfied with the progress made across the opening day despite setting what he described as ‘the most untidy lap’ on his way to seventh in the overall times.

“I was just focused on race pace all day, except for my last lap - I got one lap in and was able to do a lap-time, but honestly I think it was probably the most untidy lap I’ve ever done in my career!” Miller admitted this afternoon.

“The rear was coming around on entry, I just kept having moments on the rear, as you try to carry more corner speed in, the rear would just let go. The other issue I feel is the carcass of the tyre itself, because there is a lot of hard accelerating points here, and with the spin, when it starts to take the grip back it’s almost like the carcass starts to move, and the whole bike just starts to shake.

“It is slippery here, but it’s just the character of the track, I think. It’s just a matter of getting the setup right. It’s just one of those things - assess the character of the track and we need to manage and ride it, basically!” Miller said with his usual bluntness.

“My FP1 was on all the same tyres, 20-something laps, and then in FP2 I tried to go with the soft. The soft was moving quite a lot, the grip was not bad but it was moving quite a bit so I wanted to do a back-to-back with the medium - just to check how the medium was in the afternoon now the track was a bit cleaner. I wasn’t expecting to do a time attack at the end but the team wanted it, so we went for it. The plan was always, tomorrow in FP4, to try the hard rear, put some laps on that and see how that behaves over some distance.

“The grip levels were always an issue here in Barcelona but it gets better session by session and I think, especially on Sunday, the grip level will be quite good because we race before Moto2 here. One of GiGi’s big concerns coming here was how the grip was and I said ‘no it was mega, I was here the other week with the Panigale, it was fantastic’. Riding the Panigale around here and riding the MotoGP bike round here are two different kettle of fish - the Panigale feels perfect, like she’s got heaps of grip here and the GP bike definitely doesn’t!”

Tyre degradation is another issue that Montmeló is renowned for.

“It’s always like that here in Barcelona, ever since I’ve been coming here with MotoGP,” Miller explained.

“It’s one of those things. If you’ve got nothing at the end of the race, you can lose a lot, real quick. Going back to when I got my first top-10 in MotoGP, I remember I was just picking guys off towards the end of the race. For example, I caught up to [Héctor] Barberá I think it was, and he had literally no right hand side of his tyre left whatsoever. He couldn’t tip-in on a right hand corner. So, it’s definitely always been a key here, because there’s so many - turn three, four, even going up from seven up the hill, and then, nine, the three last corners, so you’re on that right-hand side of the tyre and they’re all high spin areas. You definitely have to be gentle with your right hand, that’s for certain here, because it can come to bite you quite severely towards the end of the race, you drop off really quick.

“Turn 10 itself is fantastic,” the Australian commented when reflecting on the adapted layout. “Much better than the bus stop before. It follows a more natural layout of the track and sort of how every other corner is - it suits rather than sticks out. I think that’s definitely the biggest thing. I don’t notice the [asphalt] transition, I think they’ve done a pretty good job. I think the transition in Mugello was much worse into the last corner than what it is here.

“I definitely feel more comfortable here. With Mugello, I love riding the track, I just don’t know what it is, I just can’t really put it together there. I definitely feel more calm coming here and more excited to go racing here. It’s a track I’ve done well at in the last couple years, I haven’t been on the box here, yet, ever, but I’ve been close” he concluded.