With his feet being held to the fire, Jack Miller didn’t melt.
Desperately in need of a strong performance to strengthen his claims to a MotoGP future, the Australian delivered at the German Grand Prix last weekend with his most prolific points-scoring round of 2025 so far.
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While that 13-point haul at the Sachsenring was timely in isolation, what helped the 30-year-old even more was that the two riders who could see him turfed out of the premier class had weekends punctuated by consistent underperformance, or sheer recklessness.
Now it’s up to Yamaha to make a decision.
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With Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Paolo Pavesio revealing at Mugello in June that confirmation of the teammate for incoming World Superbikes star Toprak Razgatlioglu at Pramac Yamaha would come “before the summer break”, Miller has one hand and four fingers on being in control of his MotoGP future.
The return of the Czech Republic Grand Prix at Brno this weekend (July 18-20) is the final round before a four-week summer hiatus, and before the final 10 rounds of the season come at a rush before the conclusion in Valencia in mid-November.
It’s a decision with, now, only one credible outcome.
Bypassing Miller for current teammate Miguel Oliveira or Moto2 up-and-comer Diogo Moreira would make absolutely no sense.
One race weekend doesn’t, by itself, act as a fork in the road for MotoGP veterans like Miller or Oliveira, nor a rider like Moreira with dreams of the big time. But Germany showed why there’s only one right answer.
MILLER DIGS DEEP, PLAYS CLEVER TO BANK TIMELY RESULT
Sunday’s MotoGP race in Germany was a war of attrition; of the 22 riders in the 2025 field, only 10 saw the chequered flag.
Eight riders crashed out. Three more were sidelined even before the race started for shunts that happened either on the Sachsenring weekend (Ducati’s Franco Morbidelli in the sprint race, KTM’s Maverick Vinales in qualifying) or while preparing for Germany, Honda rookie Somkiat Chantra requiring right knee surgery following a training accident after the previous round in the Netherlands.
It was a day for keeping your head, and Miller kept his 24 hours after he’d finally delivered the type of result in a half-Grand Prix sprint race that has eluded him all season.
From ninth on the grid after recovering from a Q2 crash in the rain which left him with a spare bike not set up for wet conditions for his time attack, Miller splashed through 15 laps of the Sachsenring to finish fifth for his best result in the past 20 sprints dating back to Austria in August last year, where he also finished fifth for KTM.
Given he’d scored just one point in a sprint all season – for finishing ninth at Silverstone in June – the five points he snaffled on Saturday were like gold dust.
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“I came out of turn three [in qualifying] and as I changed direction … as soon as I put [the bike] in the left-hand side [of the tyre] she sent me to the moon,” Miller explained.
“Then it was a bit of panic stations, sprint back to the other side of the paddock and get on the other bike. She was still a dry [weather] bike but just with soft springs inside, you never know here. The link was wrong, wheelbase was wrong, it was slippery as hell but I could circulate and at least get some laps in and put it on the third row.”
From there, and after he’d recovered from a tricky start that saw him run over a helmet visor tear-off that had been discarded by a rival rider and lose the benefit of his strong initial getaway, Miller was no match for the front four of winner Marc Marquez (Ducati), Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi, Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo and Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, but had the measure of the rest of the pack in MotoGP’s first wet sprint race in over two years.
“The elbows were out trying to fend off the position,” he said.
“I got into a rhythm and was able to pass [KTM’s] Brad [Binder] and [Ducati’s] Alex [Marquez] and start working my way up towards ‘Diggia’ [Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio] and [KTM’s Pedro] Acosta at the time.
“Every time you start pushing a little more, the tyre gets hot on the edge and I found myself nursing the left-hand side of the tyre the whole way through because you just start to overheat it, and then it becomes like chewing gum. I really tried to manage it, and I was able to bring it home in fifth which is a good result for us.”
The pace wasn’t as strong in Sunday’s 30-lap Grand Prix, but Miller managed what nearly half the grid couldn’t, staying on board on a track washed clean of grip by heavy overnight rain and with a tailwind into the tricky downhill braking zone of the first corner, an accident hotspot where five of his rivals crashed out.
Sixth with three laps to go became eighth when Honda’s Luca Marini and former KTM teammate Brad Binder demoted him within sight of the flag, but eight points represented his third-best Grand Prix result of the year after fifth in Texas in round three, and seventh in Silverstone in round seven.
A late-race engine map change to dull the power delivery to his worn tyres just to get to the line halted his forward charge, but scoring a swag of points where plenty of the championship’s heavy hitters dumped their bikes in the gravel was hugely positive.
“I got the message to swap to [engine] map three with eight laps to go, then it just turned to s**t,” he said.
“It stopped driving as well off the last corner, the last eight laps were pretty tricky. Whether I gave it a little bit too much at the beginning … I was trying. I felt like I was nursing it pretty good, the pace didn’t drop off crazily, but I definitely didn’t have f**king tyre left, I was glad to see the chequered flag when it came out. Not having a massive amount of [dry-weather] data makes things hard to get it precise.”
The 13 points Miller earned in Germany took him to 46 for the season, good for 16th in the standings. While that’s nothing to overly celebrate in and of itself, it’s a points haul his teammate can’t fathom after a difficult season got worse.
OLIVEIRA’S DOWNTURN CONTINUES
Oliveira – who missed rounds 3-5 in the Americas, Qatar and Jerez with left shoulder ligament damage following a sprint race crash with Ducati rookie Fermin Aldeguer in Argentina – had managed just six points all season coming to the Sachsenring, where he’d qualified a remarkable second and taken a sprint race podium 12 months previously.
Under pressure with Yamaha having an option on his 2026 contract if he’s the lowest-placed Yamaha rider in the standings at the mid-season break, Oliveira needed, at the very least, to outpace Miller.
It never happened, and to make matters worse, the Portuguese rider was the race’s first retirement when he crashed at the final corner on lap three.
In every on-track session, Miller had his teammate’s measure.
Miller vs Oliveira, session by session, German GP
Friday practice 1: Miller (2nd), 0.609secs faster than Oliveira (10th)
Friday practice 2: Miller (8th), 0.565secs faster than Oliveira (17th)
Saturday practice: Miller (4th), 1.101secs faster than Oliveira (16th)
Qualifying: Miller 9th (Q2), Oliveira 13th (Q1)*
Sprint race: Miller (5th), 10.081secs ahead of Oliveira (11th)
Grand Prix: Miller (8th), Oliveira crashed out of 14th on lap 3
Points: Miller 13, Oliveira 0
(* lap times from qualifying irrelevant, as rain was heavier in Q2 than Q1, and all lap times were slower in Q2).
For the season, Oliveira has just six points to sit 23rd in the standings; to not be the fourth-placed Yamaha after the Czech Republic, the 30-year-old would need to win the sprint and Grand Prix at Brno for a maximum haul of 37 points and hope stablemate Alex Rins – 35 points ahead of him after Germany – scores one point or less.
Improbable doesn’t even begin to explain the magnitude of that task.
“I feel like I lost some valuable points, especially looking at how many riders actually finished the race,” Oliveira said afterwards.
“I just lost the front in the last corner. Raul Fernandez [Aprilia] had overtaken me on turn 8, I came back on the inside and slightly lost contact with [Honda’s Luca] Marini, but I was catching up until the last corner, where I actually braked a little bit earlier, but I turned in like three degrees more and lost the front.
“Pretty strange crash and super early in the race, which makes it a bit disappointing, because I was curious to see what pace I could have held.”
In a race where fourth through eighth in the championship standings either didn’t finish or – in Morbidelli’s case – even start, Oliveira was right to lament a golden chance to enhance his case for retention.
His future now lies in Yamaha’s hands, as does the prospects for a young Moto2 charger who Germany showed is still learning the subtleties of how hard to push, and when.
MOTO2 HOPEFUL’S BLAME FOR ‘SCARY’ SHUNT RAISES QUESTIONS
Sophomore Moto2 rider Moreira emerged as an 11th-hour chance of a graduation to MotoGP with Pramac for 2025 after he’d won the intermediate-class race at Assen two weeks earlier, and given his personal ties with Yamaha in his native Brazil and as the grid’s sole rider from a country that will host its first Grand Prix in 21 years when MotoGP visits Goiania next season.
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On Sunday at the Sachsenring, the 21-year-old showed why he’d ready for a move to the premier-class, but equally why he’s not – yet.
Moreira had a shocker in qualifying and started 25th on a 28-bike grid, but took off like a scalded cat to be 13th after just two laps, and was up to fourth by lap 12 of 20.
A remarkable podium looked to be in the offing when he latched onto the back of pole-sitting Briton Jake Dixon for third, but Moreira ran wide at turn three after contact with Dixon, and made the split-second decision to rejoin the fray on the inside of the following corner, pulling straight into the path of unsighted Moto2 rookie David Alonso, the Colombian cannoning into the back of Moreira’s bike in a sickening collision.
Race stewards issued one of their harshest punishments to Moreira, who will start this weekend’s Czech Moto2 race from the pit lane as punishment for “an unsafe rejoin causing exaggerated risk.”, effectively wrecking his next race weekend before it begins.
That Alonso escaped with no fractures and an injured right thumb was miraculous, but respected MotoGP writer Neil Morrison felt the punishment was deserved despite Alonso being left to thank his lucky stars.
“What he did coming back onto the track … I wouldn’t say it’s unforgivable, but the consequences of that could have been so great, not just for David Alonso but for himself,” Morrison told The Paddock Pass Podcast.
“The FIM Stewards got it absolutely spot-on in being super harsh with him. If the chances of a move are of killing someone, then you have to be as tough as you possibly can. He’s had this amazing comeback and he’s probably thinking ‘I could still salvage something from this situation’, but, frankly, you just have to look over your shoulder. With potential repercussions being so grave, you have to really punish the guy.
“It was very scary, and thankfully David Alonso [is] obviously very sore, but relatively OK. It’s a minor miracle that something more serious didn’t happen.”
Moreira’s speed is undeniable – his surge through a field on similar equipment on Sunday evoked memories of riders like Marc Marquez or Pedro Acosta doing the same in their Moto2 heydays – but he’s still raw and green.
While MotoGP looks to be in his future – both for his performance curve and his nationality for a market that’s being reacquainted with the sport – it’s days like Sunday that make you feel that it’s more appropriate for him to have another year in Moto2 before making the step up for the all-new MotoGP regulatory set for 2027, where bikes will be 850cc machines bereft of the ride-height devices and aerodynamic aids that have changed the appearance of the sport in recent years, and on Pirelli tyres as MotoGP’s association with Michelin ends after next season.
With MotoGP perennially obsessed with finding the ‘next big thing’, Moreira may yet be it. He may end up being Miller’s replacement, too.
But that shouldn’t be for 2026.
The Australian had the inside running at Pramac before Germany; now, after a weekend of shining where his rivals either slumped or shunted, we’re only waiting for the obvious news to be delivered.