MotoGP 2023

Round One – Portimao

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Jack Miller

“We are ready as we can be. I was just sitting up here discussing with Johann how the winter testing went. It’s always different when you’re changing manufacturers there are a lot of things you need to learn, and a lot of things you need to understand and make that bike your own.

“We’re as good as we can be after let’s say five days of testing. The 1 day at the end of the year last year didn’t do much, because you sort of forget pretty much everything you learned on that day throughout the winter break. The test in Sepang was good. The test here was good as well, we can make some decent strides in the second day. I’m as ready as anyone to go racing, I think we’ve all got that itch to get back amongst it. It’s been a long winter break, but it’s been good to have a bit of downtime ahead of what’s going to be a pretty hectic and stressful season.

“I’m finding them out more and more each and every time I ride the bike. Using the steel chassis is a different concept. It’s something that they’ve stuck to and it’s done them great things in the lower classes as well as winning multiple races in MotoGP I definitely something that can work.

“Changing suspension manufacturer after so many years on the same stuff, having to learn your spring rates and what type of valving you want, and so on. It’s been busy but it’s been good, I’ve embraced the challenge. It’s been a lot of work.

“Then it was just trying to understand the philosophy of the bike and understand how the electronics work and tailor them to my needs and try to understand all that we could in the five days that we had and make the necessary adjustments.

“We’d all like another couple more days of testing but at the end of the day you’ve got to get out there and get racing, and that’s all we’re here for. I think once you’ve got set time limits and so on, that’s when the real magic happens with the bike. We’ve got a decent base set-up together, so now it’s just polishing it up throughout P1 and P2.

“We’ve got our really strong points with KTM, and the new engine package for this year seems to be a massive improvement in terms of its rideability of it and the smoothness of the power curve. We’ve made a massive step in the right direction on that front.

“I think the new package has lots of potential, it’s just managing to unlock that potential. I’ve jumped off one of the better bikes on the grid, if not the best bike on the grid. Hopping onto this project and doing what we’re doing over here has been an awesome challenge for me, it’s been awesome to bring over a couple of guys with me and be able to share our knowledge and to try to take the maximum out of this bike and I think it’s something that’s just going to flourish throughout the year.”

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Portimao MotoGP Schedule
AEDT

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2023 MotoGP Calendar

Source: MCNews.com.au