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Pramac Ducati rider Jack Miller has expressed his frustration with how long it took MotoGP race direction to stop the wet race in Valencia, labelling the situation “a joke”.
Miller was among the 11 riders to hit the ground in the first part of the season finale, with the rate of crashes picking up as track conditions worsened, before the race was suspended after 14 laps.
Miller was one of the first to fall, and grew increasingly incensed in the pitlane as more and more riders crashed.
“I mean, it was a joke, they should’ve stopped the race a long time before,” Miller said afterwards.
“I’m not giving myself an excuse or anything, but for example for Maverick [Vinales] to crash almost in a straight line…
“It’s not normal, the amount of water [that] was coming down.”
Miller felt riders’ wishes that were expressed in Friday’s safety commission meeting had been ignored, after some of his fellow competitors relayed their concerns over the track conditions in practice.
He said the track in the race was “for sure” worse than on Friday, adding that the red flags should’ve come out “a good five laps earlier”.
Miller suggested that race direction was instead trying to get the grand prix to three-quarters of the planned race distance, as this was what the regulations required for the event’s results to be declared official in case of an early stoppage.
“We pushed a lot on Friday in safety commission, because on Friday we had the two red flags, we said ‘hey, if it gets bad, put the red flag out’.
“And for me it was like they were trying to make three-quarters race distance.”
Speaking about his own crash, Miller said: “It was a little unlucky, just hit my normal line through Turn 3 and same sort of throttle, everything, just caught a puddle or whatever and aquaplaned and looped out.
“As we all did, every single one of us, I don’t think there was one crash on the front end, everybody looped out from aquaplaning on the rear.”
World Champion Marc Marquez, Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone, Miller’s Pramac team-mate Danilo Petrucci were among the riders to crash out as the rain intensified.
The rain abated to allow racing to resume after a 45-minute delay, with Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso capping the season with victory.