QUARTARARO SAYS MILLER’S SILVERSTONE SPRINT TYRE CALL MADE POINTS “IMPOSSIBLE”

Fabio Quartararo believes Jack Miller’s tyre choice effectively ruled out any chance of scoring points for the Pramac rider in the British Grand Prix Sprint at Silverstone. With Miller emerging as the leading Yamaha on the grid and finishing as the Japanese marque’s top rider in the Sprint, Quartararo still argued that one decision made the task “impossible” for him.

Miller, 31, was the only Yamaha to reach Q2 on Saturday. He secured an automatic Q2 place in practice on Friday and then qualified in P11. Quartararo, by contrast, started from P13 after narrowly missing out on Q2, finishing just 0.050s short of progression. In the Sprint, Quartararo came home right behind Miller on his satellite V4 YZR-M1, taking P13 and P14 respectively in the final classification described from Northamptonshire.

According to Quartararo, the main issue for Yamaha was not just pace but the combination of corner grip and tyre wear. He said the Sprint demanded too much from the rear tyre once he was pushing hard, with degradation becoming a limiting factor. Quartararo explained that he had been forced to ride at maximum effort throughout: “The tyre consumption was a bit high for us, because I pushed all the race, to be honest.” He added that he lost positions on the straights, stating that “I had [LCR’s Diogo] Moreira and [Honda’s Luca] Marini overtake me on the straight.”

While Quartararo acknowledged that the medium rear tyre might have been better later, he argued that Miller’s starting point was the problem. He said the medium rear would likely suit the following day’s conditions better, but that the Sprint itself was already too compromised to make up the gap: “I think the medium rear will be better tomorrow.” Quartararo also said he did not consider switching to the medium rear during the Sprint, because he felt points were already extremely unlikely. “No, [I did not consider using the medium rear tyre], because, to be honest, finishing in the points today was something almost impossible.”

From Quartararo’s perspective, Miller’s choice to begin the Sprint on a harder compound than most of the field removed the possibility of fighting for a points finish. He framed it as a strategic mismatch between tyre life and available grip, saying: “So, I wanted to bet with the soft. I know Jack was starting with the medium. But if you start already with a tyre harder than the others and you know you have already less grip, for sure it’s impossible to score a point.”

The Sprint’s tyre story was echoed by other riders’ struggles. Marc Marquez dropped to P9 after suffering extreme rear-tyre wear on the soft Michelin compound, and his difficulties pulled him toward the Yamaha pair. Quartararo and Miller finished close to the point-paying positions, with Quartararo described as 0.575s behind the defending MotoGP champion in the final point spot, and Miller also cited as 1.248s back.

Although the soft rear was the most common choice in the Sprint, only Miller and KTM’s Brad Binder opted for the medium rear. Binder, however, had to recover from a much worse qualifying position, having qualified P18 and then fought his way through to P11. Quartararo’s comments therefore placed the emphasis on how tyre wear and grip interacted with the Sprint’s demands—particularly when a rider starts on a compound that, in his view, leaves too little margin to reach the points.