Jack Miller: Quartararo “oozes talent”, but passing “borderline impossible” on Inline Yamaha - Exclusive

Fabio Quartararo’s advantage over his fellow Yamaha riders saw the former MotoGP champion finish the 2025 season eight places ahead of the next-best M1 rider, Jack Miller.

Miller managed to get the better of Quartararo on several occasions and finished as top Yamaha in six races, including the Inline M1’s farewell appearance at Valencia.

But over a season where Quartararo was the only Yamaha rider to reach the podium and should have won the British MotoGP - while Miller claimed a best finish of fourth, Alex Rins seventh and Miguel Oliveira ninth - qualifying proved decisive.

The former world champion celebrated five pole positions, beaten only by Marc Marquez, and finished the year third in the BMW Award standings, behind the Ducatis of the Marquez brothers.

Miller, the next-best Yamaha qualifier, finished twelfth overall in the Saturday morning rankings, the highlight of his debut season at Pramac being a front-row start alongside Quartararo at Phillip Island.

“I’ve been friends with Fabio for a long time, so it was great to be able to work together,” Miller told Crash.net, “But obviously, he's the first person that you want to beat, and vice versa.”

The Australian described Quartararo as oozing talent in qualifying and sympathised with the Frenchman’s frustration at often losing ground in the races.

Miller explained why overtaking on the Inline M1, which is being replaced by the new V4 machine in 2026, was “borderline impossible”.

“He's special. For one lap, in terms of talent, the guy oozes it,” Miller said of Quartararo’s Saturday morning form. “It's just unfortunate that the bike wasn't much fun to race.

“It wasn't very user-friendly when you're in a group.

“You had to ride it very specifically, and in terms of switching lines and stuff like that, it doesn't like it. You couldn't do that.

“So he wasn’t able to brake that tad bit later, or square the corner off to protect his line.

“If you want to try and set up a pass or something, it's borderline impossible unless there's a mistake.

“That's why I believe, with his qualifying, if he had a bike that he could fight, or defend a little bit better, it would make life a lot easier.”

"Cool to see Fabio’s data"

While Quartararo has only raced a Yamaha across seven seasons in MotoGP, Miller’s eleven years have been split between Honda, Ducati, KTM and now Yamaha machinery.

Along the way, he’s been able to compare data with the likes of Marc Marquez, Francesco Bagnaia and now another MotoGP champion in Quartararo.

“It's been cool to see Fabio’s data,” said Miller, who has won four MotoGP races and stood on the podium 23 times.

“It’s been really nice to understand what he does differently versus looking at other guys' data in the past, whether it be Pecco or Marc or so on.

“It helps to pick up things that he's done differently, that maybe I could do.”