The next 12 days will tell us if Jack Miller’s MotoGP career extends into a 12th season.
Or if 2025 will, this time, really be his last lap.
This weekend’s German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring (July 11-13), followed by the Czech Republic Grand Prix at Brno the weekend after (July 18-20), loom as the final two chances Miller – or Pramac Yamaha teammate Miguel Oliveira – have to save their seats in the world championship’s premier class.
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It’s a deadline that’s looming at the speed of a Yamaha YZR-M1, and one the manufacturer’s senior management confirmed before last month’s Italian Grand Prix.
After the round prior to Mugello in Aragon, Yamaha announced that World Superbikes star Toprak Razgatlioglu had – after many years of false dawns and flirtations – committed to coming to MotoGP for next season, and in Yamaha’s second squad with Pramac.
The Turk’s signature meant that one of Miller – out of contract at the end of 2025 – and Oliveira – who has a Yamaha deal for 2026 – would be making way.
At Mugello, Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Paolo Pavesio told motogp.com that the decision of who would partner Razgatlioglu would be made before MotoGP’s mid-season break, with four weeks between round 12 at Brno and the subsequent event in Austria from August 15-17.
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“When somebody comes, you need to make the space and this is not something you want to do, but it’s something which is part of the game,” Pavesio said.
“We also want to give a bit more time to both riders to have a complete assessment and then to make a choice, most probably to one of the two. We are not in a rush in a way, but before the summer break a decision has to be made, also for them.”
That “bit more time” is coming to end for both the Australian and Portuguese, neither of whom have set the world alight in Italy and the Netherlands in the past two rounds.
Miller, despite the ticking clock on his deal, is thought to have the inside running over Oliveira, both for his development work behind the scenes with Yamaha’s YZR-M1 machine and his superior form this season, and because of a clause in Oliveira’s contract that acts as a circuit-breaker on the Japanese factory’s side.
As always with MotoGP, it’s not as simple as that. Miller’s form – so strong early in the season – has tailed off at the least opportune time. Oliveira, while not having Miller’s measure on the weekends where he’s been fully fit in 2025, is at least closer than he was. Look hard enough, you can make a case for either over the other.
It’s a yes/no question with no wrong outcome, but one that could yet have a third, unforeseen answer.
Brazilian Moto2 sophomore Diogo Moreira has shot into consideration after a four-round run where he’s finished no lower than fourth in the intermediate category, won his first Moto2 race at Assen last time out, and has Yamaha backing in a re-emerging market for the sport, with Brazil set to host its first Grand Prix since 2004 next season at the Autódromo Internacional Ayrton Senna in Goiania.
Multiple credible sources have linked the 21-year-old to a Pramac Yamaha seat as early as next season, if not the season after that. For Miller in particular, it’s a left-field headache he would well do without.
How have Miller and Oliveira fared since Razgatlioglu’s announcement started a ticking clock on their futures? How do their past results at the Sachsenring and Brno offer a taste of what might be to come in the next two rounds. And would Yamaha really opt for Moreira over either of its experienced incumbents with a rookie already signed for its other 2025 seat, and with MotoGP’s massive regulation reset on the horizon for 2027 making experience a more valuable asset than ever?
WHAT DO THE STATS TELL US?
Miller and Oliveira, born two weeks apart in January 1995, each came to Yamaha for 2025 with multiple victories for different manufacturers, Miller’s four wins coming in a career with Honda, Ducati and KTM from 2015, and Oliveira’s five victories earned in stints with KTM and Aprilia from 2019.
It’s there that the similarities end, both to their 2025 seasons and their momentum.
Miller hit the ground running with a remarkable fourth on the grid for the Thailand season-opener and a celebrated fifth-place Grand Prix finish in Texas; Oliveira hit the ground full stop when he was taken out by Ducati rookie Fermin Aldeguer in the Argentina sprint race in round two, missing the following three rounds with left shoulder ligament damage.
That Termas de Rio Hondo spill for the Portuguese rider distorts the picture, but Miller has had Oliveira’s measure in most statistical categories this year.
Jack Miller vs Miguel Oliveira, 2025 season*
Championship position: Miller 18th, Oliveira 23rd
Points: Miller 33, Oliveira 6
Best Grand Prix result: Miller 5th (Americas, Rd 3), Oliveira 13th (Italy, Rd 9)
Best sprint race result: Miller 9th (Great Britain), Oliveira 12th (Netherlands)
Qualifying head-to-head: Miller 7, Oliveira 0
Best grid position: Miller 4th (Thailand, Rd 1), Oliveira 15th (Great Britain, Rd 7)
(note: Oliveira missed the Grand Prix in Argentina, and entire rounds in the Americas, Qatar and Spain with injury)
Oliveira rushed back for round six at Le Mans – admitting he wasn’t 100 per cent ready or right to show his speed – but has begun to show glimpses of his class of late. It’s been a slow road, though; of the 22 full-time riders on the grid, only Thai rookie Somkiat Chantra (Honda) and Aprilia’s wantaway injured world champion Jorge Martin (who has only appeared at one round) trail Oliveira in the standings.
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Since the confirmation of Razgatlioglu’s switch after Aragon and the starting of the countdown clock for one of their futures, Miller and Oliveira have produced similar results in Italy and the Netherlands; which is to say not much.
Miller has maintained his qualifying edge, but Grand Prix comparisons have been impossible to make after Miller retired early with a clutch issue at his bogey track of Mugello, and Oliveira sustained accident damage at Assen when he clipped Miller on lap one and pinballed into Aprilia’s Ai Ogura, a crash which sent the Japanese rookie into retirement and bent Oliveira’s handlebars to such a degree that it was unsafe to continue.
Miller vs Oliveira, past two rounds
Total points: Oliveira 3, Miller 2
Italy (Rd 9)
Qualifying: Miller 13th, Oliveira 17th
Sprint race: Oliveira 13th, Miller 16th
Grand Prix: Oliveira 13th, Miller DNF (mechanical)
Netherlands (Rd 10)
Qualifying: Miller 14th, Oliveira 17th
Sprint race: Oliveira 12th, Miller 14th
Grand Prix: Miller 14th, Oliveira DNF (accident damage)
It’s a set of statistics that are, on the surface, underwhelming but consistent; the data since Yamaha indicated one of Miller or Oliveira was headed for the exits clouds the picture more than it provides clarity.
THE CASE FOR MILLER, THE ACE FOR OLIVEIRA
Both riders have strong claims to stay.
Oliveira has a two-year deal, but one with a reported clause that the option to retain his services for 2026 lies with Yamaha if he’s the fourth and last for the four Yamaha riders in the standings at the summer break after Brno. Given he’s scored six points all season and sits 27 behind Miller ahead of the next two events, the devil in Oliveira’s contract detail looks set to come into play.
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Miller, lauded for his development work behind the scenes at his previous stops, particularly at Ducati, came into 2025 from a position of contractual weakness, but immediately endeared himself to his new employers by starting the season with 19 points in three rounds.
Since, he’s managed just 14 points in the past seven weekends, four of which haven’t produced a single point for a top-15 Grand Prix finish, or a top-nine sprint race showing.
Despite that record-scratch on his stats, no less of an authority than 30-year MotoGP paddock veteran and world feed TV commentator Matt Birt feels Miller is in the box seat to stay.
The recently-completed purchase of MotoGP by Liberty Media – and its plans to expand the reach of the sport throughout the United States and other English-speaking markets, also plays to Miller’s favour as the only native English speaker from the UK, US or Australia in the top flight, and with few successors from those three markets on the immediate horizon, Australia’s promising Moto2 race-winner Senna Agius notwithstanding.
While the machinations of the off-track MotoGP machine keep changing, it’s on track in the next two weekends that looms as critical as a potential tie-breaker between the two.
Brno in the Czech Republic – where MotoGP hasn’t raced since 2020 – looms as a relatively clean sheet of paper given the changes to MotoGP machinery in that five-year hiatus.
Sachsenring in Germany has been a stronger track for Oliveira relative to Miller, with the Portuguese having his strongest weekend of the entire 2024 season last year in Germany where he had the second-best qualifying result of his 105-race MotoGP career, his only sprint race podium to date, and his best Grand Prix finish last season.
Miller vs Oliveira in Germany and Czech Republic
Germany (Rd 11)
Miller: 9 races, best Grand Prix result 3rd (Ducati, 2022), best sprint race result 3rd (KTM, 2023), best qualifying 3rd (2023), 69 points.
Oliveira: 5 races, best Grand Prix result 2nd (KTM, 2021), best sprint race result 2nd (Aprilia, 2024), best qualifying 2nd (2024), 52 points.
Czech Republic (Rd 12)
Miller: 5 races, best Grand Prix result 3rd (Ducati, 2019), best qualifying 2nd (2019), 29 points.
Oliveira: 2 races, best Grand Prix result 6th (KTM, 2020), best qualifying 13th (2020), 13 points.
Note: MotoGP stats only
Since Razgatlioglu was signed by Yamaha last month, Pramac’s decision looked to be whether to retain Miller, or stick with Oliveira despite having the contractual power to rip up his 2026 deal.
Since Assen though, another – very left-field – name has entered the chat.
EITHER/OR … OR NEITHER?
After the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, separate reports from credible sources named Brazilian Moto2 rider Moreira as a left-field candidate to leave both Miller and Oliveira in the MotoGP unemployment line, with the 21-year-old from Sao Paulo emerging as an 11th-hour option for Yamaha’s second squad in an all-rookie line-up with Razgatlioglu for 2025.
When Pramac came to Yamaha after ending a two-decade relationship with Ducati for this season, the vision was for the team to become a testing ground for inexperienced MotoGP riders to potentially graduate to the main factory Yamaha team in the future, with the senior squad running with 2021 MotoGP world champion Fabio Quartararo and 29-year-old six-time MotoGP race-winner Alex Rins for a second straight season in 2025.
That Pramac landed with a pair of 30-somethings in Miller and Oliveira owed itself to MotoGP’s significant regulation change set for 2027 prioritising experience over youth for the short-term, and with Miller and Oliveira having previous relationships with all four other MotoGP brands as Yamaha attempts to rekindle past glories after slipping significantly since Quartararo won the title four years ago.
Pramac, as part of its nascent association with Yamaha, also runs a Moto2 squad with 24-year-old Italian Tony Arbolino and 21-year-old Spaniard Izan Guevara as its riders, but Moreira has comfortably outperformed both in the intermediate class this season, the Brazilian winning last time out in Assen to vault to third in the standings ahead of Guevara (15th) and Arbolino (17th) just prior to the midpoint of the season.
With his personal links to Yamaha in his home country and the return of the Brazilian GP imminent, it’s little wonder Moreira is being linked to Pramac – despite the Brazilian’s stated comfort with his current Italtrans Moto2 squad – as a destination for the future, be that with Pramac’s own Moto2 squad before a step up to MotoGP in the future, or as a springboard to take an immediate leap.
Moreira’s career progression and ability to stand out in the cutthroat Moto2 category scream MotoGP rider in waiting; the question is how long that wait will be, and who will offer him a pathway to the premier class.
Though not impossible, it’s hard to see Pramac biting the bullet and running a pair of rookies – albeit a 29-year-old one with a starry CV like Razgatlioglu – one year before one of the biggest regulation changes since the MotoGP category was born from the old 500cc world championship in 2002.
Which brings us back to Miller, Oliveira, and a two-week shootout that will have fans in Australia and Portugal hovering on social media hoping for some good news while simultaneously fearing the worst.
In an interview with the-race.com, Pavesio said Yamaha plans to use all of the available time before arriving at a decision.
“We’ve been transparent with both riders – we spoke to them before announcing Toprak as a sign of respect,” he said.
“That’s the game and they are all grown boys, and they know.
“We all have seen Jack’s impact, he was very good in the beginning and then he had some more difficult weekends, which is also part of the game – everything is new. Miguel, he had the very early injury which for sure has delayed the adaptation to the bike.
“It’s why we need to use all the time we can to assess and take a decision, which is not an easy decision.”