Unlucky Jack still top 10

TOWNSVILLE- BORN MotoGP rider Jack Miller faced an uphill battle to earn a top- 10 finish in America.

He wore an injury after a mountain bike crash before the race and a rough qualifying round on the twisty Circuit of the Americas in Texas.

But still Miller ( left) finished ninth overall, his sixth top- 10 finish in a row. He admitted ninth was a let- down after his fourth- place finish in Argentina weeks before but was relieved to finish upright. Miller cracked his collarbone and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder in the mountain biking crash.

He then crashed on the track in practice before the qualifier, writing off his main bike. He struggled with the set- up of his second bike and was only able to qualify 18th fastest.

“Saying that, 18th and not hurting myself again after the injury I came in with actually wasn’t a bad result,” Miller wrote on the team Red Bull site.

“There’s no small crashes here because of the nature of the track, as I found out the hard way a few years ago when I had to miss the race here.

“So, 18th sucked, but being upright and not too sore afterwards was a win of sorts.”

Early Monday morning ( AEST), Miller worked his way up to eighth but a last- lap mistake allowed Spaniard Aleix Espargaro to overtake.

The Spanish dominated pole position, with Marc Márquez winning followed by Maverick Vinales in second while Italy’s Andrea Iannone finished third.