Ducati MotoGP rider Jack Miller has been given a grid penalty for impeding Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo during the qualifying session for the Argentine Grand Prix at Termas de Rio Hondo.
Quartararo came up on Miller approaching the sweeping Turn 7 right-hander during a fast late lap in Q2, with the Aussie too close to the racing line on entry to the corner for Quartararo not to be compromised.
Traffic on @FabioQ20's fast lap! ⚔️
It's busy out there! 💨#ArgentinaGP 🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/Z9dVxyj3BH
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 2, 2022
The incident was immediately placed under investigation, while Quartararo did subsequently get a comparable flying lap in, securing sixth place on the grid.
Miller, for his part, had been compromised by a crash earlier in the session and could do no better than 11th – which has now turned into 14th by virtue of a three-place grid penalty.
Down goes @jackmilleraus! 💥
The Ducati man slides out as @AleixEspargaro sets the fastest time of the day! 🔥#ArgentinaGP 🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/sPTDpOaBon
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 2, 2022
This means he will be in the middle of an row five, right behind factory team-mate Francesco Bagnaia.
“I’ve just been told now that I have a penalty. A three-place grid penalty,” Miller told media.
“I don’t know what more they want from me – [after the crash] I swapped bikes, swapped leathers, trying to get comfortable with both… it’s not like I was intentionally trying to get in anybody’s way. But anyway.”
Quartararo, for his part, emphasised that having a lap on a fresh rear tyre ruined after he’d pushed for two sectors was costly on a track like this.
“It’s one of the fastest places of the track [where I was impeded],” he said. “I don’t want to complain because it can happen, maybe he didn’t see me. He was not really in the racing line – but when you arrive that fast, if you have someone like really in this position, it’s disturbing you. I think it’s not fair.
“Let’s say it’s not bad or [something] he made on purpose, but… you are in a position that you don’t need to be. And when you are in Turn 5, you saw that someone is coming, you go to the right, you don’t stay in the line. But I don’t really care.
“It’s like that – and I don’t want to say it was dangerous, just it was not so fair.”
The incident comes two weeks after Quartararo and Miller were at odds over the way the former battled the latter in the wet-weather Indonesian Grand Prix.
