Tyre chaos at Motegi, even the medium blisters: Miller: "Everyone on the hard

In Motegi, choosing the medium tire wasn’t enough to avoid blistering. Jack Miller finished the Sprint in 16th place with the rear tire full of bubbles in the central section, and his account has reopened the tire case ahead of Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix. In the meantime, Michelin has withdrawn the soft from the race options, leaving the medium and hard available and strongly recommending the latter.

In the Sprint won by Marc Marquez, Miller was one of only two riders to fit the medium on the rear, along with Marco Bezzecchi. Everyone else chose the soft, with Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia running into serious trouble at the end. The Australian had opted for the intermediate compound mainly for stability, explaining that on the Yamaha the advantage of the soft is less evident compared to other bikes.

"With the soft we don’t get that big increase in edge grip or braking support that some of the other manufacturers have. That’s why I chose the medium. It kept working well, especially on the right side, but the central section was full of blisters. Not to Pecco’s levels, but not far off," Miller recounted.

Hence his prediction, made before Michelin’s decision: "Tomorrow we’ll all be on the hard. I can almost guarantee it." A strong signal, because it shows that the problem on Motegi’s new asphalt doesn’t concern only the soft.

The change in scenario risks upending the work of the entire weekend. No one has yet run the hard at Motegi, and the reinforced carcass is the same already used in Austria, where Ducati struggled to find grip according to Crash.net. For this reason, at Yamaha Max Bartolini is aiming to get a twenty-minute warm-up instead of ten.

"I know Max would have asked for a 20-minute warm-up, if necessary, to understand how to proceed, because the mapping will be completely different. All the work done during the weekend will no longer be suitable: tomorrow morning we’ll have to try to adapt as quickly as possible," Jack explained. Even a longer warm-up, however, with different temperatures and few laps, would hardly be indicative.

Asked by Crash.net, Miller admitted that such a late change could turn the Grand Prix into a lottery. And he added with a touch of irony that rain would have solved the problem: "I think so. It would be better if it rained, so we wouldn’t have to worry about it, but I looked at the forecast and it’s not coming."

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