Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP closes its most difficult weekend of the season
Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP endured a challenging Austrian Grand Prix, with Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and Jack Miller struggling with the balance and tyre performance of the YZR-M1 throughout the weekend and finishing 20th and 21st respectively.
GRAND PRIX OF AUSTRIA
RACE
Spielberg (Austria), 20th September 2026
20th
TOPRAK RAZGATLIOGLU +46.724 / 28 LAPS
21st
JACK MILLER +67.530 / 28 LAPS
Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP experienced its most difficult weekend of the season so far at the Red Bull Ring, with both riders facing a series of issues from the opening sessions that prevented them from extracting the full potential of the YZR-M1. Despite the continued efforts of the technical team to find solutions and provide both Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and Jack Miller with a more consistent package for the race, the difficulties experienced throughout the weekend remained.
Both riders struggled from the early stages of the Grand Prix, with a significant drop in tyre performance becoming apparent within the opening laps and making it difficult to maintain a competitive pace. As a result, Razgatlıoğlu and Miller were unable to make the progress the team had hoped for and eventually crossed the finish line in 20th and 21st position respectively.
The result brings a difficult weekend to a close, but the information collected throughout the sessions will provide further data for the ongoing development of the YZR-M1 project. The team will now analyse the findings from Austria and continue working towards the next round of the championship, the Japanese Grand Prix at the Twin Ring Motegi in two weeks’ time, with the objective of turning the lessons learned into further steps forward.
GINO BORSOI Team Director, Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP
It is clear that this has been the most difficult weekend of the season for us. We have struggled quite a lot from the first day, and unfortunately we were not able to make the improvements we were looking for. The combination of the problems we faced and the characteristics of this track exposed some of the difficulties we are still working through with this new project.
We knew that engine performance would be one of our limitations here, but during the weekend we also understood that there are other areas we need to work on. Both Jack and Toprak suffered from a significant drop in tyre performance during the race, which made it very difficult to maintain a competitive pace.
We have to take this weekend as an opportunity to learn. Now it is important to analyse the data carefully, understand exactly what we need to improve and find solutions for the next races. If we can make these steps forward, they can give us a significant improvement with this project. We are not going to get discouraged; we will learn from the difficulties we faced here and come back stronger.”
TOPRAK RAZGATLIOGLU Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP rider
I’m very frustrated because I still don’t understand what happened today. Normally, with a new tyre, the first laps are when you have the most grip and can really push, but from the beginning I had almost no rear grip. I was already struggling in the first few laps, and every time I opened the throttle I was just spinning. It was very difficult to understand how I could manage the bike like that.
Usually, if the tyre starts to drop after several laps, you can understand what is happening and adapt your riding. Today, I had the problem from the beginning, so I lost a lot of time straight away and could never find a good rhythm. I was basically just trying to finish the race because I was not enjoying riding the bike at all.
I think it is not just one thing. We are missing a little bit of everything at the moment – physical grip, power delivery and electronics – and when you put all those small problems together, it becomes a much bigger issue. We need to understand exactly what happened because we cannot accept having this level of tyre performance from the first laps. It was a very difficult day, but now we need to analyse everything and understand how to avoid this situation again.
JACK MILLER Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP Rider
It’s honestly a pretty frustrating one, and I’m disappointed with how the race went. I was able to hang in there reasonably well in the first part of the race, but from around lap 13 or 14 the tyre performance really started to drop and I struggled a lot with the rear.
Once that happened, there was not much I could do. I was trying to pick the bike up and manage the acceleration, but I was still getting a lot of spin and losing time. It became more about trying to get the bike to the finish than fighting for the positions we wanted.
It’s particularly frustrating because we have experienced something similar earlier in the season, so we need to understand why this is happening and what we can do differently. There are things we need to look at from this weekend, and we’ll go through the data carefully and try to make sure we learn from it.
Team Director, Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP
We knew that engine performance would be one of our limitations here, but during the weekend we also understood that there are other areas we need to work on. Both Jack and Toprak suffered from a significant drop in tyre performance during the race, which made it very difficult to maintain a competitive pace.
We have to take this weekend as an opportunity to learn. Now it is important to analyse the data carefully, understand exactly what we need to improve and find solutions for the next races. If we can make these steps forward, they can give us a significant improvement with this project. We are not going to get discouraged; we will learn from the difficulties we faced here and come back stronger.”