'You learn how to navigate the cesspool'

Few MotoGP riders are more fun to interview than Jack Miller. The Australian talks about the murky world of paddock politics, how he spends £250,000 (Rs 2.80 crore) on racing each season and how Yamaha's MotoGP fightback is coming along

- Mat Oxley

THIS IS JACK MILLER'S 11TH SEASON IN MOTOGP. During that time the 30-year-old has signed factory contracts with Honda, Ducati, and KTM and been sacked by Honda, Ducati, and KTM, so he knows all about how the paddock works. One moment you are the beloved son of a factory family and the next you are out on your ear.

That is what happened this time last year when he got a surprise call from his boss at KTM.

“The last I heard was, “Don’t bother talking to anybody, because we want to keep you in the family”,” Miller told us at the time. “Then you get a phone call three hours before the press release gets launched, saying you are not getting a contract.”

Miller loves being a MotoGP rider, but he has been around long enough to know the paddock is every bit as mean, nasty, and dirty as the racetrack.

“The paddock has taught me a lot of things,’ he chuckles. “You learn how to navigate the cesspool, I guess you could call it, you learn your way.

“You really get to understand it—it’s weird, but it works—so I wouldn't want to change it. It’s weirdest for outsiders, like Ruby [Miller's wife], who came in here as a complete outsider and had to learn how to navigate this world and learn how people are.”

Does he tell his missus whom to avoid?

“Yeah, there are some people you talk to and you mutter “wanker” as you walk away. There are always people putting the knife in and twisting it but I wouldn't change it for the world.

“Having Ruby come over, building the family [their daughter Pip was born in 2023], and travelling with them is unreal and doing this job at the level I do it is fantastic.”