Valencia MotoGP: Miller: Everybody wants to be on a Ducati

Jack Miller has claimed 🎀his sꦚecond consecutive MotoGP podium after finishing third behind Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin.
Miller, who started t💮he race in the same third place as he finished, had to recover from an early part of th﷽e Grand Prix that saw him go from second to sixth.
After challenging pole sitter Martin for the lead at the beginning of lap two,😼 Miller quickly lost places 🦋to Suzuki riders Joan Mir and Alex Rins, team-mate Bagnaia and a quick-starting Fabio Quartararo.
But as the race wen💖t on, Miller used his extra rear grip to make his way back into third before closing in on race leaders Bagnaia and Martin.
Miller was unable to get any higher despite pushing to the absolute limit, however, his third place along with Bagnaia winning his fourth race of the year helped Ducati not only take a history-making all-Ducati podiu🐬m, but also their first team’s championship since 2007.
"I’m proud to be part of this history-making podium. Three Ducati’s in the top three is just fantastic, it’s fantastic for them, f🎐antastic for the team, fantastic for the engineers because they have worked so hard," said Miller.
"If we go bacꦍk to 2011, 12, 1💜3, the history is long of struggling. But if we look at where we are now and how many bikes that are so strong; I know when I joined MotoGP in 2015, if you asked whether you’d like to hop on a Ducati you would say ‘not really’, but now, everybody wants to be on a Ducati.
"I think that’s the situation we have right now. I think it comes down to the riders, the engineers and how we’ve been woꦰrkin𒆙g the last few years.
"It’s great to be involved in this part of the development of these💝 last couple of years."
Following the race, Miller allude𝓰d to being too conservative with tyre management early on after witnessing Marc Marquez deploy that tactic on his way to a win in 2019 at Valencia.
Instead, Miller believes it cost hi🅰m a better result along with having to come from further back than Bagnaia or Martin needed to.
Miller said: "The first laps, honestly I felt like a deer in headlights because I tried to go past Jorge [Martin] but he immediately got back past me. Then I got a little bit flus♊tered you could say.
"I had a little bit of a moment when I grabbed the brakes into the last corner, he [Francesco Bagnaia] came through and then it was Suzuki, Suzuki, Yamaha. I wﷺas like ‘what’s going on here’.
"I was able to regain composure, but ꦓI was leav🍒ing myself a little bit vulnerable, let’s say, because I was really trying to manage it (rear tyre) on the exit of turn one and turn 13.
"I remember Marc [Marquez] in the past those were the tw🍰o points in the track where he was really slow and I could catch up, but later in the race they were two poin🌜ts he was really fast at.
"I tried to play the long game a 🐎bit, ✅but definitely going back that far didn’t help me."