KTM announce the signing of Jack Miller – The Australian will ride alongside Brad Binder in the factory MotoGP team in 2023/24 – Miguel Oliveira’s future open
KTM will compete with a new rider pairing from the 2023 MotoGP season. Jack Miller moves from Ducati to Austria and will be Brad Binder’s new teammate. An agreement has been reached on a two-year contract. With Miller, who will be 28 next year, KTM is relying on an experienced man.
The Australian has been riding in MotoGP since the 2015 season and has since contested 126 races in the premier class. After three years in Honda customer teams, Miller switched to Ducati in 2018. For three years he rode in the satellite team Pramac. He has been part of the factory team since 2021.
Miller and KTM know each other. In 2014, he was runner-up in the Moto3 World Championship in Aki Ajo’s KTM team. Ajo is still Miller’s manager. And between Ajo and KTM, the connections with the teams in the Moto3 and Moto2 classes are excellent and very close.
In MotoGP Miller has won three races so far. One with Honda and two with Ducati. In total he has been on the podium 17 times. In addition, he has a pole position and two fastest race laps to his credit.
Why KTM chose Jack Miller
“He wants to join us and we would like to have him,” says KTM Motorsport Director Pit Beirer about the new signing. KTM deliberately chose an experienced man to help get the project back on track for success in the future.
“When you are fighting to catch up, as we are at the moment, it helps to have different characters,” Beirer holds. “With Brad Binder, we have someone who is one of the best riders for the race distance. “
“He also underlined that in Mugello when he started 16th and was only four seconds behind at the finish. He drove a great race again. But that one lap [in qualifying] still gives us a headache. “
Currently, KTM rides with Binder and Oliveira, and in the Tech 3 team with rookies Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez. All four have come to MotoGP with the Austrian brand and have no past or experience with the competition.
Beirer explains: “We have the situation that we have two riders who have grown with us in this class. They don’t know what it’s like elsewhere. Then we have two rookies. In this constellation we don’t solve the puzzle, which is our big weakness on Saturday lunchtime.”
“In Barcelona we were sixth on Friday. We were also sixth and eighth in the warm-up. In the race we are riding okay, but in qualifying we are too bad. In this respect, I would be tempted by a Miller because I know he attacks on a lap.”
“In the end, whether he can race stronger than Miguel is something he has to prove,” adds the KTM motorsport boss. Whether Oliveira will remain part of the KTM family is currently uncertain. Beirer would like to keep the four-time MotoGP race winner.
He offered him a move to Tech 3 for more salary. Oliveira, however, was not enthusiastic about this proposal and contacted the competition. In Barcelona he was seen with representatives of Ducati and the Gresini team. Whether an agreement was reached is currently unknown.
