{"id":86592,"date":"2025-08-22T04:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/86592\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T04:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T04:07:07","slug":"ex-honda-crew-chief-was-worried-jack-miller-would-get-the-whole-team-fired-during-one-marc-marquez-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/86592\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex Honda crew chief was worried Jack Miller would get the whole team ‘fired’ during one Marc Marquez battle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jack Miller jumped straight from Moto3 to Honda\u2019s MotoGP family back in 2015. It was a remarkable reward for finishing runner-up in the lightweight class.<\/p>\n

While he lost out to Alex Marquez in an incredibly close title fight, he outperformed the likes of Alex Rins, Miguel Oliveira, Enea Bastianini and Francesco Bagnaia. Honda<\/a> became the first team to pluck a rider straight out of the third tier.<\/p>\n

Initially positioned at LCR, Miller moved to the now-defunct Marc VDS team for 2016. Like the rest of the Honda riders, he was in the shadow of Marc Marquez<\/a>, but he became a regular points finisher in his sophomore year.<\/p>\n

\"JackPhoto by Mirco Lazzari gp\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Miller worked with Cristian Gabarrini, who already had experience with his fellow countryman Casey Stoner. Based on his comments on the Mig Babol podcast, Gabarrini remembers the partnership with great fondness.<\/p>\n

Jack Miller\u2019s crew chief knew he couldn\u2019t afford to take out Marc Marquez at 2016 Dutch GP<\/p>\n

Across three years on Honda machinery, Miller only once finished higher than sixth. The 2016 Dutch Grand Prix was a truly anomalous race, but it was also one of the finest moments of his career.<\/p>\n

Miller defeated the mighty Marquez at a wet Assen<\/a> to land a first premier-class victory and establish his enduring status as a wet-weather specialist. He\u2019d started down in P19. <\/p>\n

Watching Miller go wheel-to-wheel with Marquez from the Marc VDS garage, Gabarrini felt as if his job was on the line. Making contact with the franchise\u2019s biggest superstar would have been disastrous. <\/p>\n

But the then 21-year-old executed the move cleanly and assuredly saw out the remaining seven laps to take the chequered flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring that year, Honda made the incredible decision to take a rider from Moto3 and bring him directly to MotoGP \u2013 Jack Miller<\/a>,\u201d Gabarrini recalled. \u201cThey came to me and asked me if I\u2019d be interested in managing another Australian. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was in love with Jack Miller because I was a fan of his in Moto3, I liked him as a character. You couldn\u2019t help but love seeing him like that. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the next two years, I was Jack Miller\u2019s crew chief with the satellite Honda \u2013 two incredible years in which I really enjoyed myself. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe even managed to win a race at Assen in the wet. It was fun, but at the same time it was stressful, because in the last laps Jack caught up with Marquez, a fully-fledged factory rider, and passed him. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought to myself, if he knocks him down, we\u2019ll be all fired, they\u2019ll send us all home. <\/p>\n

Why Cristian Gabarrini left Jack Miller to work with Jorge Lorenzo<\/p>\n

Gabarrini and Miller parted ways at the end of 2016 when the former was approached by Ducati to work with Jorge Lorenzo. Despite his bond with Miller, he felt he couldn\u2019t turn down the chance to link up with a three-time MotoGP champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of that year, Ducati reached out to me saying they\u2019d signed Jorge Lorenzo and they\u2019d like me to be his crew chief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really fond of Jack, and HRC was a wonderful experience, but inside, I thought, there are also trains that never pass in life. Having the chance to work with Jorge Lorenzo\u2026 it never happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller himself would end up riding a Ducati bike at Pramac in 2018. He then graduated to the factory team two years later.<\/p>\n

Gabarrini is now working with Francesco Bagnaia, who has won two world championships but has lost his way in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Miller jumped straight from Moto3 to Honda\u2019s MotoGP family back in 2015. It was a remarkable reward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,64626,914,3555,4280,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-86592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cristian-gabarrini","11":"tag-honda","12":"tag-jack-miller","13":"tag-marc-marquez","14":"tag-motor","15":"tag-motor-sports","16":"tag-motosport","17":"tag-motosports","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}