Marco Bezzecchi
Alex Rins has a contract with Yamaha for the 2026 MotoGP season, so he should be safe, while Jack Miller and Miguel Oliveira fight to stay at Pramac beyond this year.
Questions continue to linger over which rider will leave the Yamaha ranks at the end of 2025 after Toprak Razgatlioglu signed a two-year factory contract to join Pramac next term. Miller is the most at-risk rider as his factory Yamaha deal expires this term, unlike Oliveira and Rins.
Yamaha gave Rins a two-season, £1.8m-a-year contract in August 2024 to take his time at the Iwata outfit beyond his first season with them. Yamaha also gifted Oliveira a two-season deal last September to join Pramac from the 2025 MotoGP season after he left Trackhouse.
But Yamaha included a release clause in Oliveira’s contract, which has now become active as the Portuguese is the lowest-scoring rider on a YZR-M1 at the summer break. The 30-year-old only scored six points from 12 rounds to Fabio Quartararo’s 102, Miller’s 52 and Rins’ 42.
Yamaha could drop Alex Rins for ‘physical reasons’, rather than to promote Jack Miller
Legendary Italian rider manager Carlo Pernat believes Oliveira will need to produce a strong finish to his season for the five-time Grand Prix winner to stay on the grid next year. Oliveira may also need to look elsewhere for a ride, as Pernat backs Miller to stay at Pramac in 2026.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Alex Rins from net worth to career stats
There have been suggestions that Miller could replace Rins at Yamaha in 2026, yet the Iwata natives shot those down. Instead, Pernat believes a ‘question mark’ hovers over Rins’ future in the works Yamaha line-up beyond 2025 due only to the 29-year-old’s ‘physical’ condition.
Pernat has told GPOne: “The dropouts who will leave MotoGP will be, first person [Somkiat] Chantra, who will leave. Question marks [are] Miller, Oliveira [and] Raul Fernandez. Miller is desperately and rightly trying to stay where he is, but there could be other changes.
“Miller is one of those, but I think you’ll see that Miller will stay there. Raul Fernandez will probably stay because he is doing better. Oliveira has to wake up because otherwise, I don’t see him in good shape. Chantra, ciao. All the others, there is not one who leaves…
“Well, the only question mark might be Rins, but Rins is a question mark for physical reasons. When I was negotiating with Lin Jarvis last year and we were talking about Rins, who had already had some problems, he was seen very well by Jarvis and the team.
“In addition to being a strong rider, if he is not ill, he is a great team player. He is a great locker room player, and sometimes this is useful and Rins probably thrives on that, too.”
Jack Miller staying at Pramac in 2026 would not guarantee that Yamaha retain Alex Rins
While Pernat believes Jarvis was a big supporter of Rins, the Briton left the Japanese team at the end of 2024. Paolo Pavesio also replaced Jarvis as of January 1, 2025 as the managing director of Yamaha Motor Racing, so he now controls the futures of Rins, Miller and Oliveira.
Pavesio has ruled that Yamaha will not decide Miller and Oliveira’s futures with Pramac until the end of August, as he wants to include their performances at the Austrian Grand Prix and Hungarian GP in the Iwata outfit’s verdict. Yamaha are also exploring signing a Moto2 talent.
As Pernat expects Miller will stay at Pramac in 2026, it is Yamaha’s interest in the Moto2 grid that could cause Rins to panic. It is said that Honda have already decided that Diogo Moreira will replace Chantra at LCR, as the Japanese brand bid to avoid the Brazilian joining Yamaha.
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