Miller rode with shoulder tear, cracked collarbone

The Aussie admits he kept his injury quiet heading into the weekend, first revealing that he was carrying a tear to his rotator cuff and a crack in his collarbone after qualifying 18th on Saturday.

He opened up on the injuries more after finishing a credible ninth on Sunday, explaining that they were sustained during a mountain biking session in California.

"I expected more coming into the weekend, but we struggled with the bike set-up from the get-go, and I was struggling with a shoulder injury that I carried into the weekend as well," he wrote in a column on the Red Bull website. "Not ideal.

"We kept pretty quiet about the shoulder all weekend, but now we're done, I can admit that it wasn't great. I was out training in California after Argentina, and I fell off doing some mountain biking.

"The injuries are nothing that some rest time and recovery can't handle, but I ended up with some muscle damage, some bruising and a little tear on my rotator cuff on my right shoulder. And a crack in my collarbone as well.

"I tell you, sometimes the time between the races can be more dangerous than the race weekends themselves..."

Miller added that he was relieved that a fall in pre-qualifying practice didn't worsen the injuries.

"There's no small crashes [at COTA] 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," he said.

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

Between the poor qualifying performance and the injuries, Miller said ninth in the race was actually a good result.

"I'll take that – that's six [Top 10s] in a row for me now," he wrote.

"It was a tough old weekend for us in Texas and definitely a bit of a let-down after how good Argentina was, but sometimes you have to make the best of a shitty situation and get what you can out of it.

"So ninth place is a pretty positive end to what wasn't the most positive of weekends."