MotoGP Jerez RACE: Jack Miller takes first Ducati win

May 2, 2021 EMR Writer

Jack Miller takes his first Ducati win and the first Ducati win at Jerez since 2006.

Jack Miller takes his first MotoGP class win with Ducati, his second in the class following his 2016 win at Assen on a Honda in the rain. He now has silenced his doubters taking a dry win at Jerez in a Ducati 1-2, handing Ducati their first win at Jerez since Capirossi in 2006. Miller started the season in a bad way with 2 x 9th placed finishes in Qatar and a crash in Portimao but has come back following arm surgery with a race win which will have completely revitalised him mentally and proven to himself that he has what it takes and can fight for this title.

Don’t forget he’s the guy who jumped Moto2 to race in MotoGP and he’s now a 2 x race winner on two different motorcycles, major respect to that man.

He finished ahead of his teammate Francesco Bagnaia who now leads the championship thanks to a little help from Fabio Quartararo who suffered major issues falling down the order lap by lap in an apparent arm pump issue, Bagnaia raced home to P2 behind Miller. Ducati are on fire this year and their choice of Miller and Bagnaia is one of the best decisions they have ever made, Bagnaia even showed pace of winning the race closing up to Miller at the end of the race before thinking about the title and settling for P2, a true title contender.

The duo were joined on the podium by Franco Morbidelli, a man who is clearly angry and annoyed at Yamaha for supplying him with a 2019 bike despite him being their clear best rider in 2020 taking a podium again today. He spoke after the race saying that he rode his heart out putting in 100% all race long and was rewarded with P3 overall, still not happy but has proven he’s fast enough, c’mon Yamaha, sort it out.

Takaaki Nakagami very nearly took the last podium place from Morbidelli and was catching him by 0.300 lap by lap, 2 more laps in the race and Nakagami could’ve stolen the last podium spot from Morbidelli. Mir finished in P5 ahead of Aleix Espargaro who once again finishes in P6 matching their best ever result, he ran as high as P4 during the race before dropping back to P6 eventually but Aleix is proving again that the Aprilia is good enough to battle for the podium putting in results on multiple different tracks.

Marc Marquez took home another top 10 finish in P9, still working to improve and get back to what he knows best improving his muscle strength and riding at the limit. His two crashes this weekend have damaged him a little mentally causing him to ride with caution as he confirmed himself, however race by race he will get back into the swing of things and it won’t be long until we see him back at the front battling for wins, he finished ahead of his teammate Pol Espargaro in P10.

Fabio Quartararo looked to ride home to a certain third win in a row on the Yamaha and their fourth consecutive win of the season but it wasn’t to be, instead he finished in P13 after losing a lot of time thanks to what looks to be arm pump which he struggled with in Qatar and Portimao. Once the race had finished he looked to be in excruciating pain holding his wrist in the pit box indicating it could be an arm pump problem.

Valentino Rossi once again rolled home outside of the points making it 10 races in a row he has now finished without a top 10 finish.

Full results –