“I can’t see how” Pramac would let Jack Miller go to welcome Toprak Razgatlioglu
Jack Miller handed major backing to keep MotoGP seat
All the indications are that Pramac Yamaha will sign Toprak Razgatlioglu for next season.
Swapping the World Superbike Championship for MotoGP means Razgatlioglu will be hot property in 2026 - and will take the bike of an existing rider.
Pramac, since leaving Ducati and becoming a Yamaha satellite team, paired Jack Miller with Miguel Oliveira as their new-look rider duo. Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins form the factory pair.
Some of these riders will surely be looking over their shoulders as Razgatglioglu gets set to arrive.
But the only one whose contract is due to expire at the end of this season is Miller.
Jack Miller handed major backing to keep MotoGP seat
“This is a big talking point for this weekend at Aragon,” Peter McLaren told the Crash MotoGP podcast.
“We’ve heard rumours of Toprak to MotoGP for years - could this actually be it? “Let’s see. All the signs are that’s what we’re looking at.
“How does he fit into the puzzle?
“On paper, Jack Miller is the only rider without a deal for next year. But at the same time, Miller is the second-fastest Yamaha rider fairly consistently.
“It’s only his first year on the bike, the same as Oliveira who has been injured.
“He is new to the bike but is having a great year performance-wise. He hasn’t quite got the final results to show it but he’s been much faster than his place in the championship suggests.
“So what do they do with that? This is the interesting part.
“Fabio is way ahead of the others so you could make a case for Toprak in any of the other three seats.
“A surprise is that, in the past, his manager Kenan Sofuoglu was insisting on a full factory team. Maybe that’s the only bit where they’ve had to compromise but we know that Pramac Yamaha has full factory support, the bikes are the same as the factory’s.
“It would allow Toprak to keep Red Bull, with Monster sponsoring the factory team.
“It’s a tricky one but it would be amazing to me if they got rid of Miller, to be honest, considering the season he’s having with so little experience of the bike.
“There is also a factory Aprilia seat potentially available for next year.
“This might not be Jack being pushed. There might be other teams trying to pull Jack out of Yamaha.”
Jordan Moreland added: “I can’t see how Yamaha would let him go.
“He has validated and helped Quartararo. He has gelled well with Miller. They seem to get on.
“Pramac are not a satellite team like in the past, they are engrained in the factory. It’s a big effort.
“If Toprak comes to MotoGP it’s a good place to be because it’s not the bright lights of the factory, and your teammate isn’t Quartararo!
“[Quartararo] is doing magical things on the bike. Toprak is a fantastic Superbikes rider but this is MotoGP - it’s different to deliver at that level straight away.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
