Image: Supplied.

Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Jack Miller ‘turned the bike upside down’ on Sunday in a bid for an uplift in the Catalan GP, with the general feeling positive for the Australian as he could ride the RC16 the way he wanted on his way to P8.

Miller just missed Q2 on Saturday after towing Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) into a transfer position, and as a result, had to start both the sprint and Sunday’s GP from the fifth row of the grid in 13th position.

A first-turn incident pushed Miller back in Saturday’s race but a lack of traction meant P16 was the end result, leaving him in search of a radical improvement come the GP.

A completely revised setting on Sunday paid dividends for Miller, as in the restarted race he was able to make a fast start before ultimately taking the chequered flag in eighth position.

To underline the step made, he was 16s from the win in the 12-lap sprint race, while the deficit at the end of the 23-lap Catalan GP was only 10.8s

“We made some massive changes today and it took me a good five-six laps to get used to them and manage these low grip conditions,” Miller recalled.  “I have to apologise to the guys because they have been working their butts off to help us and to save the tyres. We turned the bike upside down and I got the feeling back.

“I made a couple of mistakes but then started going quite strong. I didn’t realize it was the last lap because I wanted to manage the tYre but it was fun and I could ride the way I wanted. It was cool. Misano is the opposite of here, a lot of grip, so we’ll see what we can do there.”

Miller’s next outing will come at the 12th round of the 2023 MotoGP World Championship this weekend at Misano, where he enters ninth in the points standings.