Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP Makes Positive Start at COTA
Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP opened the Grand Prix of the Americas with encouraging signs on Friday, as both Jack Miller and Toprak Razgatlıoğlu made clear steps forward compared to the previous round.
GRAND PRIX OF THE AMERICAS
PRACTICE
Austin (Texas, USA), 27th March 2026
16th
JACK MILLER 2'02,242 / 19 LAPS
18th
TOPRAK RAZGATLIOGLU 2'02,373 / 16 LAPS
Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP kicked off its weekend at the Circuit of the Americas with a productive and encouraging Friday, showing clear progress from the previous round in Brazil.
Jack Miller was able to resolve some of the issues that affected his performance in the last race, allowing him to regain a more consistent feeling with the bike throughout the day. While some areas still require attention — particularly under braking, an aspect also highlighted by his teammate — the overall direction appears positive, with the team set to analyse the data overnight to unlock further improvements ahead of Saturday.
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu also continued his adaptation process with another step forward in performance. Despite his limited experience at COTA, he showed strong pace in the most technical sections of the track, especially in sectors one and two, where he was able to stay within three tenths of the fastest riders. A few small mistakes and some remaining areas to refine on the bike prevented him from climbing higher than 18th position, but the overall performance confirmed both his potential and the competitiveness of the package in key areas of the circuit.
Track action resumes on Saturday at 10:10 AM (GMT-5) for FP2, followed immediately by Q1 and Q2, with the Sprint race scheduled for 3:00 PM.
It’s nice to be back here at COTA. We’re working through things and hopefully we can find a bit more this evening. At the moment we’re still lacking some speed, even compared to the other Yamahas, so we’re trying to understand where we need to improve.
Overall, the pace doesn’t feel too bad — I was able to put together a lap towards the end, even in tricky conditions, and get a bit closer to the others. We just need to improve the feeling with the bike and the electronics, and I believe the two are closely linked, especially through the chicanes. Every time I try to pick up the throttle and change direction, the bike is not responding the way I’d like.
In the end, it’s a combination of small things, and that’s to be expected when you’re riding a bike that hasn’t been here before. We’re exploring every possible direction to develop it as quickly as we can, but at this level it’s never easy. We’ll keep our heads down, keep working and gather as much information as possible.
TOPRAK RAZGATLIOGLU Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP rider
I’m starting to enjoy the bike more, but of course we still have a long way to go. In the morning everything felt quite good, but in the afternoon we ran into some issues.
I was strong in the first two sectors, but I kept making mistakes in Turns 11 and 12, where I’m struggling to get the bike to stop properly, and that’s something I still need to understand. It’s frustrating because I wasn’t able to complete a clean lap, and with the pace I had in the first part of the track, I was quite close to a direct place in Q2.
We’ll see tomorrow — if I can improve in those areas and put everything together, we can aim for a better position, maybe inside the top ten. So there is some frustration, but at the same time the data shows that we are improving, and as always I will give my best again.
Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP Rider
Overall, the pace doesn’t feel too bad — I was able to put together a lap towards the end, even in tricky conditions, and get a bit closer to the others. We just need to improve the feeling with the bike and the electronics, and I believe the two are closely linked, especially through the chicanes. Every time I try to pick up the throttle and change direction, the bike is not responding the way I’d like.
In the end, it’s a combination of small things, and that’s to be expected when you’re riding a bike that hasn’t been here before. We’re exploring every possible direction to develop it as quickly as we can, but at this level it’s never easy. We’ll keep our heads down, keep working and gather as much information as possible.