Image: Supplied.

Australia’s Jack Miller was on track for a potential first victory with the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team in MotoGP before a high-speed crash ruled him out of contention at Valencia, the RC16 racer recalling after the incident ‘I didn’t do much different compared to the previous lap’.

Despite a sizeable crash in practice on Friday, Miller showed strong pace in Valencia and narrowly missed a front-row starting position, lining up P4 for the sprint and Sunday’s full-length encounter.

A technical problem affected Miller’s start in the sprint, meaning he had to recover from the rear of the field to P12, but a much cleaner getaway on Sunday saw the number 43 swiftly inside the top three.

Miller soon found his way past MotoGP world champion Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) for second, and took the lead from teammate Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) after the South African ran wide at turn 11.

Unfortunately, as the race progressed, Miller made a costly error of his own at turn 10, causing him to crash out which resulted in a case of what could have been.

“Not much to say,” Miller recalled. “I didn’t do much different compared to the previous lap. I’d had a few moments with the front so decided to take it easy and not do anything too savage and, yeah, she just got away from me.

“It could have been an amazing result…but we’ll take stock and bounce back. It has been a year of firsts in many ways and a bittersweet way to end because it’s nice to know we have pace and we’re heading in the right direction.

“We have been working our butts off. The rider is just one small part because there is so much going on behind the scenes. It’s a battle to better a MotoGP during a season like this and with the small window. Everyone has worked tirelessly, so I thank them all for that.”

2023 marked the first of a two-year contract Miller has with the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team, scoring a GP podium at Jerez in P3 plus two sprint race rostrums (Jerez and Sachsenring) throughout the season.