Keith Huewen listener Qs: Miller, Quartararo, MotoGP in the USA and more!

With one more weekend before the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, podcast host Harry Benjamin opened the airwaves to a range of questions sent in by listeners.

The questions include MotoGP in the USA, where the next British MotoGP star will come from, new tracks, Jack Miller at KTM, Fabio Quartararo reverting to old settings at Yamaha, plus some of the crazy things Huewen has seen in racing (spoiler: It involves a road trip to Assen, eggs and a fire extinguisher!)

When an Australian listener asked if late-race tyre wear is a problem for Jack Miller, former grand prix rider and British champion Huewen replied:

“Jack's a great rider and a great personality. He’s basically jumped on that KTM, so there's a whole new learning curve and tyre wear is such a tiny nuance in your weapon of talent.

"It is the hardest thing to get right. Go back to Dani Pedrosa, who couldn't quite make the front work at certain temperatures. Go back to one or two other riders, who couldn't make the rear work. There were even times when as the fuel load went down the front didn't work and later the rear, as the fuel weight moved. It is just the tiniest difference.

“The other thing you've got to remember is there's so little time to sort these things during a weekend. Very few riders get a lot of laps in one run nowadays. Grid position is everything, and so you need to work on those fast laps, but that means you have less knowledge of tyres at the end of the race.

"Jack will work it out because despite the fact he seems like he’s Jack the lad, he's a clever bloke and he knows what he's got to do. 

"I also think the people around him at KTM are smart and Binder is not a million miles away from Jack in terms of how aggressively he rides a motorbike. I think the data that everyone is gathering as a huge group will benefit Jack and he will get around it eventually.”

Crash.net’s MotoGP editor Pete McLaren added: “The tyre wear issue was something that came up for Jack at Ducati, but the KTM is a very different bike and as Jack's already said it likes to slide a lot more than the Ducati for example.

“Tyre performance is such a tricky thing. On the one hand, people that work the tyres harder might struggle at the end of a hot race. But then they tend to do better in qualifying or on a cold or damp track because they can quickly get heat into the tyres and be instantly fast - as we know Jack is.

“So what works in one situation can hurt you in another, it’s about finding a balance. It’s the same with bike design. But Jack’s only five rounds into his KTM career and already regularly up there fighting for the podium. So I think it's looking good for him.”

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