Fabio Quartararo has come to the defence of Jack Miller and Alex Rins after both Yamaha riders lost their places on the MotoGP grid for 2027.
Miller and Rins will move to the World Superbike Championship next season after Yamaha’s difficult 2026 campaign left them without a seat in MotoGP. Quartararo, who will also leave Yamaha for Honda in 2027, believes their struggles should not be taken as a reflection of their ability.
Yamaha introduced an all-new V4-powered MotoGP bike this season, but the change has yet to deliver the expected improvement. After 12 rounds, the manufacturer has scored just 73 points in the constructors’ standings, with Quartararo’s fifth-place finish at the Catalan Grand Prix its best result so far.
Quartararo currently sits 14th in the riders’ championship with 55 points, while Miller, Rins and Toprak Razgatlioglu occupy 19th, 20th and 21st respectively.
However, Quartararo believes Miller and Rins deserve more credit, particularly given their experience and previous success in MotoGP.
Source: The Race
The Frenchman pointed out that he has more experience with Yamaha than his current team-mates and therefore has a better understanding of how to extract performance from the new V4 machine.
Unlike Yamaha’s 2025 bike, which Quartararo had become familiar with, the new machine requires a completely different riding approach.
“Alex and Jack have won races in MotoGP,” Quartararo said. “Alex has won with different manufacturers. They are really fast riders. They are not rookies.”
For Quartararo, the performances of Miller and Rins are further evidence of Yamaha’s current struggles rather than proof that the two riders have lost their competitiveness.
The manufacturer had initially expected 2026 to be a development year, with hopes of making significant progress during the second half of the season. However, Quartararo believes Yamaha remains some distance from challenging at the front.
He also expects the current V4 bike to receive no major updates for the remainder of the season, with Yamaha instead concentrating its resources on the next-generation 850cc regulations.
“I think Yamaha is fully committed to the 850,” Quartararo said, adding that the manufacturer knows it is still far from achieving strong results with the current package.
That means the Yamaha riders are likely to spend the rest of 2026 working with the same basic specification and trying to extract as much performance as possible.
For Miller and Rins, the situation is particularly frustrating as both have proven MotoGP race winners. Their departure, along with Quartararo’s move to Honda, marks a major change for Yamaha as the manufacturer continues its rebuilding process.
Quartararo’s assessment also suggests that Yamaha’s problems run deeper than its rider line-up. With the V4 project still lacking clear strengths compared with last year’s bike, the manufacturer faces a significant task to return to the front of the MotoGP grid.
