Jack Miller was left perplexed following his fifth place finish in the Catalan Grand Prix where he struggled to keep his medium-compound rear tyre alive.
The Aussie ace battled with the likes of Alex Rins, Fabio Quartararo and Danilo Petrucci for second place, but settled for his fourth top-five result of the season as he struggled towards the end of the 24-lap contest.
While able to remain in touch with the podium battle for the majority of the race, Miller admitted he had likely made a wrong tyre choice as fellow Ducati GP19 rider Petrucci managed third with the soft-compound rear.
He lost ground towards the end, and was even re-passed by a recovering Rins following the Spaniards mistake at Turn 1, where he was forced to run on after out-braking himself and dropping to seventh.
“It makes me scratch my head a little bit what Suzuki are doing to make the tyre last like they do,” said Miller.
“Because if you see how much smoke is coming off their back tyre, and how aggressive they are compared to us on acceleration, it really makes me wonder.
“I was so gentle the whole race on my tyre, really, really calm and just saying be calm because at the end of the race you’re going to come back towards them.
“I’ve seen it before here in Barcelona, you can make up nearly a second a lap if someone’s tyre is destroyed at the end of a race, but it didn’t seem to work out that way.
“They were able to keep the pace, keep the rhythm and not really have any moments.
“I saw Danilo, the other Ducati, on the last two laps was starting to struggle a little bit more but he was on the soft, so this makes me wonder if I should’ve opted for the soft rather than the medium.”
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