SYLVAIN GUINTOLI BLAMES COLD CARBON BRAKES FOR JACK MILLER’S FP1 CRASH AT MISANO

Sylvain Guintoli believes Jack Miller’s early crash in FP1 at Misano was triggered by something simple but unforgiving: cold carbon front brakes meeting cool-track conditions on the very first lap out of the pit lane. The Pramac rider was immediately caught out when the MotoGP field arrived for the opening session of the 2026 San Marino Grand Prix under noticeably cooler weather.

Miller’s incident came at Turn 4, where he went down in the braking zone for the right-hand corner aboard his V4 Yamaha YZR-M1. Just moments later, Pedro Acosta produced another early stoppage in FP1, sliding through the gravel trap at Turn 1 after losing the front tyre on turn-in. Acosta was able to recover on his other machine to finish the session in P6, while Miller ended FP1 down in P17.

Guintoli, speaking about what he thought happened, pointed to the front brake locking as the key moment. He suggested the carbon disc had not reached operating temperature, so when Miller grabbed the brake, the stopping power arrived suddenly—leading to a lock-up and a loss of control. “Jack’s got caught out already,” Guintoli said on TNT Sports 2. “It’ll be as he grabs the brake, almost straight [up]. This is cold carbon brakes.”

The Ducati rider explained the mechanism behind the lock-up: with discs still cold, the rider has to apply more force because the brake isn’t stopping as expected. “As you take the front brake and the discs are still quite cold, you’re having to, so straight away, because it’s not stopping, you put more pressure, and then suddenly they heat up, and it just bites,” Guintoli continued. He added that the combination of new tyres and a not-yet-fully-activated setup can make the situation more likely. “And with new tyres, a bit cold and not quite activated yet, that can happen. It’s usually a rookie mistake, but in conditions like this, that can happen. It just locked up underneath him and threw him out.”

While Guintoli described the outcome as “usually” the kind of error associated with less experienced riders, he also acknowledged Miller’s pedigree. Miller was in his 213th premier-class race at Misano, yet Guintoli still framed the moment as a “rookie mistake” in the sense of how quickly the brake power can come on once the discs heat up. “That sudden brake power coming on as the discs heat up – it just locks almost completely straight up,” Guintoli said. “Almost a bit of a rookie mistake, but it’s easy to do that.”

Miller himself described the crash as an out-lap problem linked to temperature. He told Crash.net that his brakes were cold at the moment he grabbed them, but then they generated heat instantly and locked. “Ah, cold brakes, cold tyres,” Miller said. “As soon as I grabbed the brakes, I understood that they were cold. I was OK with that. But then, heat instantly, and sometimes when they catch heat instantly like that, they just lock, and the tyre wasn't ready.” He added that the bike nearly “bunny-hopped sideways” before he was on the ground “before I had a moment to even think about what was happening.”

From the moment the lock-up occurred, Miller had little chance to save the situation. The crash happened only about 30 seconds into the session, with the bike folding at the front and Miller hitting the deck without pushing into the right-hander. The consequences were significant for the remainder of his running: his Yamaha M1 lost lots of aerodynamic parts on the right-hand side as it skidded toward the gravel, before digging in and coming to rest. With the main bike effectively compromised, Miller was unable to complete meaningful representative laps for the rest of FP1.

On track, Marc Marquez set the pace in the cool conditions, turning a 1:31.468 on his GP26 to edge Marco Bezzecchi by just 0.060 seconds. Miller’s best effort in the session was a 1:32.368, and Alex Rins—on the slowest Yamaha in P21—posted a 1:33.322.

After the session, Miller said Yamaha’s day had been difficult beyond the crash. He reported that the M1 was struggling to drive out of corners despite the high-grip asphalt, and that the bike was pushing so much into some turns that “it feels like I’ve got a semi-trailer behind me”. “Just trying to get the drive, you know, trying to get the bike to hook up, it's not working,” he explained. “The bike seems to be difficult to make a turn.” He added that while the bike felt stable through the fast sequence of corners, as he arrived at Turn 14 on the brakes it felt like the machine was not rotating enough at the apex, forcing him to “force it and rotate it.” He said the team had been “playing a lot, a lot with it today,” including going down with the rear, then down with the front and then down with both, to find the right balance, but that it was “just a little bit too late.”

The crash came on a week that already carried major off-track news for Miller. His future was confirmed as he will join Yamaha’s WorldSBK team from 2027, after the Japanese manufacturer elected not to offer him a new factory MotoGP contract with Pramac. Izan Guevara is set to replace Miller from the 2027 season.