Miller confident of Phillip Island MotoGP return

The Aussie missed Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix after breaking his leg during a trials bike outing in Andorra, and was replaced by Honda test rider Hiroshi Aoyama.

However, Miller reckons his leg is now “almost 100 percent”, and that he’ll be fit enough to return to the Marc VDS squad for his home race at Phillip Island.

“The leg is pretty good. Almost 100 per cent, I'd say,” he wrote on the Red Bull website.

“I’ve been doing a fair bit of physio to get the swelling out, and the cycling has been good because it's low impact and working on motion to get the leg back working properly again.

“I’ve got to get used to carrying some metal around in me for a while, because there's a plate and eight screws down the side of my right tibia, and they'll be in there until next Christmas, not the one coming up – they'll be in there a full year, until the end of 2018.

“I asked about getting it all out sooner, or as soon as possible, and they advised me not to. So they'll do a full season with me next year.

“I’m not sure what I physically have to do when I get to Phillip Island to be formally passed to race next weekend – I'll cross that bridge when I come to it – but I've got no dramas whatever I have to do.

“I’ve made massive progress over the last week, and I could go out running right now if I needed to.

“It's not just that it's Australia that I'm ready to get back racing next weekend – wouldn't matter where it was, I'd be right to ride.

“[It’s] a bonus that I get to come back for my home race, of course, but it's not like I'm only coming back because it's the Island. I'll be ready.”

Miller also detailed the incident that led to the broken leg, calling it a “nothing accident”.

“The weird thing is, especially when you think what I do for a job, breaking my leg the way I did was such a nothing accident,” he wrote.

“I was out with Maverick [Vinales], [Alex] Rins and [Fabio] Quartararo doing some trials riding in Andorra and I put my right foot down because the front wheel washed out, like it's done a million times before, on a grassed slope.

“As I did that, it jarred my leg and gave me a massive hematoma above the knee, and then below the knee, the tibia just split. I guess when I threw my leg out to save the front, the leg was loose and the muscles weren't tight, and the bone just cracked.

“I’ve done way worse before plenty of times, and not even felt a thing. We were the furthest point away from where we started riding that day, so I had to ride back with a broken leg and roll down the hills.

“It didn't even hurt, but looking above the top of my knee, I just thought it might be dislocated. So much for that.”