Three riders, two seats.
One problem.
That’s the mathematical equation facing the Pramac Yamaha team ahead of this weekend’s ninth round of the MotoGP season at Mugello in Italy, with the Japanese factory having signed World Superbikes star Toprak Razgatlioglu for 2026 since the previous round at Aragon in Spain, and with the futures of its two incumbent riders now in limbo as a consequence.
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And while the managers of both Jack Miller and Miguel Oliveira will be scouring the fine print of their contracts to see who will stay to be Razgatlioglu’s teammate next season or be kicked to the unemployment line, Mugello in isolation isn’t a make-or-break round for either the Australian or Portuguese.
For Miller, that’s a good thing.
For reasons he can’t entirely explain and don’t make any rational sense, Mugello has been a graveyard for Miller from the moment he first threw his leg over a MotoGP machine in 2015; truth be told, there weren’t a lot of good memories from his 2012-14 Moto3 stint, either.
Of all the tracks to feature on the calendar for the entirety of Miller’s premier-class tenure, Mugello has, by far, been the site of his worst results. Numerically, it’s not close.
Be it for Honda (2015-17), Ducati (2018-22) or KTM (2023-24), Mugello has been shorthand for bad news for the 30-year-old, and he knows it.
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“Mugello is a track I’ve always liked, even if it hasn’t particularly liked me in the past – my results here haven’t been great, I’m not going to lie,” he said before his final KTM ride there a year ago.
“I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Mugello … for whatever reason, it’s never really worked out for me. I love the track and everything about the place but the results have never really been there.”
Will a move to Yamaha machinery change the narrative this weekend, and does that even matter? The good news, if you’re preferring to take a glass half-full approach, would be that it’s hard to be worse.
THE STATS THAT PAINT A GRIM PICTURE
Before the ‘why’ – explaining Miller’s Mugello misery – and the ‘where’ – as in where the Australian might end up if his Yamaha time is short – we need to consider the ‘what’, as in what Miller has achieved at the Italian Grand Prix.
Every other Australian rider or driver in an international motorsport series has their kryptonite; Australia’s F1 podium drought for home drivers in Melbourne has lasted 29 years, while Daniel Ricciardo’s Brazilian Grand Prix woes became a story of their own no matter who the Australian drove for.
On two wheels, two-time MotoGP champion Casey Stoner never got on terms with Jerez in Spain until the final season of his 11-year world championship career in 2012 despite winning 45 Grands Prix across all three classes everywhere else.
For Miller, Mugello stands out for its paucity of points. It’s the venue that’s been on the schedule for his entire career where results have eluded him.
Jack Miller’s worst MotoGP tracks (2015-on)
25 points: Italy (Mugello)
37: Qatar (Lusail)
50: San Marino (Misano)
52: Argentina (Termas de Rio Hondo)
55: Australia (Phillip Island)/Japan (Motegi)
The advent of the sprint race era in 2023, Miller’s first season at KTM, looked to have flipped his fortunes when he finished sixth in the sprint and seventh in the Grand Prix; so-so results in isolation, but worthy of a parade at Mugello.
Last year though, Miller laboured to 12th (sprint) and 16th (Grand Prix) as part of a pointless weekend where he learned he was being replaced at the factory KTM team by Spanish teenager Pedro Acosta for 2025 halfway through the event, and just before Marc Marquez’s refusal to ride for Pramac Ducati and the subsequent ripple effect in the rider market that saw Miller almost out of MotoGP before being signed by Pramac Yamaha in September, the 22nd and final rider to ink a deal for the following season.
PIT TALK PODCAST: In the latest episode of Pit Talk, hosts Renita Vermeulen and Matt Clayton preview this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, unpack Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Paulo Pavesio’s comments on Jack Miller and Miguel Oliveira after signing Toprak Razgatlioglu, and look at why Mugello looms as a crucial round for Ducati’s home hero Francesco Bagnaia.
Mugello 2024, then, is how Miller finds himself in the position he’s in one year on for 2026 and beyond, with Pramac bringing Razgatlioglu into the MotoGP fold for next season.
One of Miller – who signed a one-year deal with Yamaha just to stay on the 2025 grid – or teammate Oliveira, who is also new to Yamaha for 2025 but has a two-year contract, has to go.
Paddock chatter has a decision being made after the Czech Republic Grand Prix at Brno in late July, the final race before MotoGP’s four-week summer break and the final 10 rounds of the season.
Mugello, then, isn’t critical for Miller, but it is important.
For now, he’s in a position of advantage with Yamaha, and it’s one he needs to hang onto, bogey circuit or not.
‘YAMAHA IS VERY PLEASED’
With a deal that runs out at the end of 2025, Miller’s time at Yamaha appears, on paper, to be short. It’s little surprise that rumours linking him to a move to World Superbikes – which erroneously flowed this time last year, too – have emerged since the Razgatlioglu signing.
But in Miller’s case, a one-year contract may be worth more than it sounds on paper.
At the most recent round in Aragon, news emerged that Oliveira’s deal has an out-clause for the factory if the Portuguese rider is the fourth and last of Yamaha’s riders in the standings at a particular point of the season, thought to be the post-Brno mid-season break.
Oliveira has just three points from four completed rounds this season – the 30-year-old missed the Argentina main race plus the entire events in Austin, Qatar and Spain after suffering left shoulder ligament damage in a crash with Ducati rookie Fermin Aldeguer in the Termas de Rio Hondo sprint race – while Miller has 31 points to sit seven places higher in the standings, ahead of factory Yamaha rider Alex Rins, who is also signed for 2026.
In Aragon, Oliveira acknowledged that he needs to deliver, and fast.
“I have to put the performance,” he said.
“This season didn’t start the way I like to … being so long off the track when you’re trying to learn a bike that is not an easy bike, you need to adapt. Basically until the summer break, I have to show my skills.”
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It’s a timeline consistent with reporting from one of MotoGP’s premier news breakers, Spanish journalist Oriol Puigdemont, since Aragon.
Per es.motorsport.com, Puigdemont wrote: “Yamaha is very pleased with Miller’s input, not so much for his results but for his technical feedback. The Iwata factory is reportedly so satisfied that they may offer him a renewal. In any case, both Pramac riders have been told they have until the summer break to earn their places for 2026.”
Speaking at last weekend’s World Superbikes round at Misano, Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Paolo Pavesio confirmed the short-term timeframe to make a choice.
“We have not made a decision, which of course is a delicate decision,” Pavesio told motogp.com.
“We have two riders we have chosen, and we have two riders we want to give all the possibilities to exploit their potential in the coming races, and then we will have to make a decision.”
Time, then, is of the essence for Miller and Oliveira as they attempt to secure the sole vacant seat alongside MotoGP’s most intriguing newcomer in years in Razgatlioglu, the all-action Turk arriving in the world championship as a 28-year-old with next-to-no prototype bike experience, but with a Superbikes CV that features two world championships for different manufacturers and a host of showstopping overtakes and celebrations that have inspired an entire nation, and spawned a fervent global fan base.
Whoever survives to ride the sister YZR-M1 in 2026 – and beyond, as MotoGP pushes into its brave new 850cc world from 2027 onwards – remains to be seen, and will act as a benchmark for the hype that will inevitably herald Razgatlioglu’s arrival.
With four rounds remaining to the mid-season break, Miller has contractual weakness and statistical strength, and endeared himself to his Japanese paymasters by agreeing to ride for Yamaha in the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hour event in the gap between Brno and the resumption of the season in Austria in late August.
Scoring some – any – points at Mugello won’t be easy based on that muted Italian Grand Prix past, but they can only help.