Jack Miller points to reason that Yamaha "simply doesn't work" at Red Bull Ring
Jack Miller says Yamaha’s MotoGP bike “simply doesn’t work” with the harder construction rear tyre after finishing last at the Austrian GP.
Yamaha’s toughest weekend of the season ended with all four M1 riders at the back of the field during Sunday’s Austrian MotoGP at the Red Bull Ring.
The only consolation was a single world championship point, with Fabio Quartararo finishing 15th and 25 seconds behind race winner Marc Marquez’s Ducati.
Factory team-mate Alex Rins was five seconds further back, followed by the Pramac Yamaha pair of Miguel Oliveira and Jack Miller.
Miller, who crossed the line 18th and last, 37.5s from Marquez, concluded that the M1 is fundamentally incompatible with the special harder construction rear tyre needed for the extreme stop-and-go Spielberg layout.
Yamaha “simply doesn‘t work with this rear tyre”
“There‘s not much to say after a very, very difficult weekend for all of us,” said Miller, who held 16th in the early stages before fading to last by lap 17 of 28.
“It‘s disappointing, to say the least. I felt good for the first five laps – and by ‘good’, I mean the grip was acceptable.
"But it was the kind of grip we should normally have at the end of a race, not at the beginning. And here, we never had that level at all.
“It‘s quite clear on paper that this weekend our bike simply doesn‘t work with this rear tyre and its construction.
“There‘s just no way to make it work. I tried everything I know, from short-shifting to being super patient on the throttle, just trying to find a way to defend myself.
“But once you reach around 120 km/h, when the momentum should be enough, we start losing load on the rear, the bike spins like crazy in a straight line, and there‘s nothing you can do about it.
“The front end of the YZR-M1 is phenomenal, but the rear is the limitation. We need to work hard to understand how to improve it.”
While the result was demoralising for Yamaha, Quartararo did at least improve on his 2024 Austrian MotoGP time by a big 18.7s, with Rins 7.4s faster than last season.
Miller himself lapped 6.8s quicker than he managed for KTM last year, although Oliveira was 3.1s slower than on his way to 12th for Trackhouse Aprilia.
For comparison, Marc Marquez’s race-winning performance was almost identical to last season, being just 0.167s quicker than Francesco Bagnaia managed in 2024.
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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.
