Jack Miller thinks Yamaha have pulled a ‘complete’ U-turn after what he’s seen at Pramac

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Jack Miller has seen Yamaha change ‘completely’ since the Australian signed a factory contract with the Iwata outfit to switch KTM for Pramac for the 2025 MotoGP season.

This term saw many changes throughout the MotoGP paddock as a plethora of riders moved teams and Pramac also changed affiliations from Ducati to Yamaha. The Tuscan team ended a 20-year association with Bologna Bullets to run Yamaha bikes for the first time since 2003.

Pramac and Yamaha agreed to a multi-year contract to make the former the latter’s de facto second factory team after only fielding two bikes in 2023 and 2024. Yamaha also gave Miller and Miguel Oliveira factory rider contracts to join Pramac from KTM and Trackhouse Racing.

Yamaha have shown Jack Miller their ‘full commitment’ to improve their MotoGP bike

Yamaha sought to coax Pramac from Ducati’s side as the Japanese crew bid to move back to the front of the MotoGP order. The Iwata natives have fallen sharply since Fabio Quartararo won the 2021 riders’ title and Franco Morbidelli took second place for Petronas SRT in 2020.

Only Honda on 75 earned fewer points than Yamaha with 124 in the constructors’ standings last year compared to Ducati on 722, KTM on 327 and Aprilia on 302. So, in what Miller calls a ‘complete’ U-turn by Yamaha, they are now welcoming Pramac’s say to improve their bike.

READ MORE: Everything to know about Yamaha from the MotoGP team’s riders to hierarchy

“[It’s] pretty much identical in terms of parts [and] in terms of test items, everything,” Miller noted about how his Yamaha M1 at Pramac compares to factory riders Quartararo and Alex Rins, via quotes by Crash.

“The way that Yamaha from, let’s say, a company that was quite closed in the past with what they did in terms of factory riders and satellite riders, they’ve turned a new leaf completely and it’s an open slather, you could say.

“We structurally worked through the whole test plan throughout the whole testing programme, whether I try a chassis and it goes over the different days through all the riders to try to gain information from everybody to then do better the next step.

“I think they’re doing the correct way and it shows their full commitment to improve the project and improve their position.”

Ducati surpassed Yamaha as the MotoGP team to beat by utilising the satellite structure

Ducati became the force to beat in MotoGP after fully utilising the satellite structure to build the most complete bike on the grid with the full support of Pramac, Gresini Racing and VR46 Racing Team. Gresini and VR46 have both run Ducati bikes since the 2022 MotoGP season.

READ MORE: Everything to know about Pramac from the MotoGP team’s riders to bike

The extra data that Ducati received from Pramac, Gresini and VR46 often gave their stable of riders a huge advantage as their engineers had vast resources to see where their bikes could improve between Friday’s practice sessions, to qualifying on the Saturday and for the races.

Yamaha neglected the potential to do similar whilst RNF Racing were their satellite outfit for the 2022 MotoGP season following Petronas SRT’s rebrand. Not having any satellite crews in 2023 or 2024 then put Yamaha even more at a disadvantage to Ducati, plus KTM and Aprilia.