After getting back on his bike so he could take it back to the pitlane, Jack Miller found himself riding slow coming out of turn 5, while Aprilia rider Maverick Viñales came down on his final lap trying to improve his time.
Viñales came very close to hitting Miller on the right side of the prototype, at which point the Australian looked over his left shoulder to check if other bikes were coming.
Although he immediately apologized to Viñales, Miller was sanctioned by Race Direction and will have to serve a long lap penalty in Sunday’s race.
This is the second consecutive long lap penalty for Miller, after he was handed one for crashing under yellow flags in FP4 last weekend at the Sachsenring.
Prior to the announcement of the penalty, Miller said that he had not received any citations from Race Direction and that he felt he had done nothing wrong. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Miller said of the Viñales incident.
“I did everything I could do right. I pulled to the left, I literally started [after the crash], I was sitting sideways in the saddle from pushing off.
“I had a footpeg that was [broken], I was trying to get my foot on to make sure [the footpeg] wasn’t going to break when I put all my weight on it to get my leg over to the other side of the bike. I’ve gotten over it , I was already strong on the other side of the track and I looked to make sure I wasn’t in the way of anyone.”
“Viñales was there and I couldn’t do anything. I understand that the line takes you there, but there wasn’t much more I could do. I went to apologize because I know it was shit, but there was nothing I could do, friend.”
Viñales argued that he had “no problem” with the incident, since they were going to cancel that lap for going through a sector with a yellow flag, but acknowledged that he was “lucky” not to hit the Ducati rider.
Miller is not the only rider to have to serve a long lap penalty at Sunday’s Dutch GP, with Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli receiving the same punishment for reckless driving in FP2.
