Watch: Jack Miller takes evasive action to avoid running over crashing rival in Czech MotoGP

VIDEO: JACK Miller’s Czech Republic MotoGP almost came to a crashing halt in the early laps when a rival fell down in front of him.

ONLY quick thinking kept Jack Miller clear of an early crash in the Czech Republic MotoGP, allowing the Australian rookie to finish the race in 19th place.

Miller was at the tail of the group of Open class riders when fellow Honda rider Eugene Laverty crashed in front of him on the exit of the first corner on Lap 4.

With Laverty sliding across the track directly in his path, Miller couldn’t quite avoid him despite riding off the track and onto the astroturf on the inside of the Turn 2 kerb.

Miller clipped Laverty as he tumbled, but the Northern Irishman was fortunate to escape the contact uninjured while Miller regathered and continued in the race.

“It was not the best start I’ve had on the bike,” Miller conceded.

“We got into a decent rhythm, and then when Eugene went off I had to avoid him so I had to go off track.”

RACE REPORT: Jorge Lorenzo wins Czech Republic GP to take championship lead

RESULTS: Click here for the race results from the Czech Republic GP at Brno

The move lost him barely a second to the battling pack ahead of him, but it forced him to push harder than planned to trim back the deficit.

“I really pushed to try and close the gap between myself and (Loris) Baz, and we were doing it,” he said. “Once we got past (Mike) di Meglio I started putting in a decent race rhythm.

“But I pushed for about five (or) six laps and then the thing started to get a little bit shaky, started to get a crazy amount of spin.

“We tried to back it off a little bit and bring it home, and at the end I couldn’t do anything when di Meglio came back.

“Every time I’d get grip it would start wheelieing and wouldn’t stop until the next braking point, and when I came to the next braking point the brakes weren’t there.

“A little bit of a shame, but happy to finish the race and get some valuable bike time.”

The wheel spin issue is one his LCR Honda team have been trying to get their heads around for most of the season, but the good news for Miller is that they made setup breakthrough on another troublesome front.

“The rear spin’s something that we’ve always had with the Open bike. We all chose the option of the softer tyre for the race,” he added.

“It’s something that was going to come, but I expected a little bit less than what we got today because we tried to conserve the tyres the first couple of laps, but it didn’t really work out for us.

“We still have to fix the front end problem that we have at the moment (but) we made a big step in the warm up, so I look forward to Silverstone to work on that a little bit more.”

Originally published as Watch: Jack Miller takes evasive action to avoid running over crashing rival in Czech MotoGP