Jack Miller: Toprak Razgatlioglu ‘unfortunate’ in timing of rookie MotoGP season
Jack Miller says the timing of Toprak Razgatlioglu’s rookie season has been ‘unfortunate’.
Toprak Razgatlioglu has been ‘unlucky’ in the timing of his move to MotoGP, says his team-mate Jack Miller.
Razgatlioglu’s move to the premier class of grand prix racing had been long-awaited after several seasons standing out for his radical and aggressive style in WorldSBK, combined with remarkable consistency.
The Turkish star finally moved for the 2026 season, joining Pramac Yamaha in the Italian team’s second campaign as Yamaha’s official satellite squad.
Yamaha’s history in MotoGP is one of success, generally speaking, but its recent struggles are well-known, of course, with no win since 2022.
Ahead of the major regulation change for 2027, Yamaha switched to a V4 engine for this year, which has not proven a silver bullet to the Iwata marque’s performance problems. Predictably, changing engine configuration after over 20 years with one design requires some development to extract the new package’s potential, and that development takes more than half-a-season.
For Razgatlioglu, it means his first season in MotoGP has been spent trying to develop a bike while also learning the championship, some new tracks, and the different tyres.
Miller, who seems set for a move to WorldSBK for next season, admits that his team-mate has not come to MotoGP at the perfect time – at least not at the perfect time with Yamaha.
“He’s a good character,” Jack Miller said of Razgatlioglu, speaking to Crash.net ahead of the British Grand Prix.
“We get along great.
“All of my team-mates I’ve got along with very well, and with Toprak it’s no exception.
“I think he’s a great guy, he’s got immense talent on the motorcycle. We’ve enjoyed some fun times.
“Unfortunately, his rookie year has been developing this bike, so that makes things tough.
“We’d like to celebrate some better results together, that’s for certain, but unfortunately those are the cards we’ve got given.”
Razgatlioglu himself has maintained that his target for this season is to finish races in the top-10.
The Turkish rider is the only full-time Yamaha rider to have not scored a top-10 yet. Fabio Quartararo has netted Yamaha’s best result of the season so far with fifth in Catalunya, while Alex Rins was ninth at Assen, and Miller himself was eighth in Hungary.
Alex joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having covered consumer and racing motorcycle news at Visordown for two years.
