QUARTARARO AND MILLER AFTER SPIELBERG: YAMAHA LEAVES WITHOUT POINTS

Fabio Quartararo’s frustration boiled over again at the Red Bull Ring, where Yamaha’s V4 era continues to deliver results that are hard to accept. After another weekend without points, the 27-year-old Frenchman said the outcome felt exactly as expected—while also underlining how difficult it is for him to string together the kind of lap consistency needed to reach the top 10.

Yamaha’s situation in the championship has been described as bleak: the manufacturer is far behind in the standings and the team classification mirrors that struggle. For Quartararo, even securing points has become a recurring challenge. At Spielberg, he failed to finish in the points for the seventh time this season. Speedweek also reported that not a single Yamaha rider scored a World Championship point in Austria.

The weekend started with a positive signal in qualifying. Quartararo was tenth in Friday’s session, which meant he advanced to Q2. However, when it came to the decisive laps, he could not improve beyond 12th on the grid. In the Sprint and the main race, he ended up 12th and 17th respectively.

Reflecting on the day, Quartararo said: “The qualifying went well, and also the Sprint was good.” He added that he had already anticipated the difficulty of reaching the top 10: “I knew it would be difficult to get into the top 10. So I think P12 is the position we deserved. I feel good on the bike, but in the race it’s harder to ride the same lap times when other riders are in front of you.”

Sunday’s 28-lap race followed a similar pattern. Quartararo made a quick start and came through the first corner in eighth. For the first half of the race, he held himself in the top 10, but the momentum faded and he slipped backwards. He explained that his early push was intentional, even if it risked tyre wear: “What should I say about the races? It went as I expected. I gave everything and tried to stay close to Pecco in the first laps, even if that would destroy my tyres. I knew that a points finish would be difficult, but I tried.”

Quartararo pointed to a broader tyre problem affecting his pace across compounds: “Our problem is that we have difficulties with every tyre. In qualifying I expected more problems, but in the Sprint and the main race we had a lot of spinning. Actually, other riders had even more to deal with than we did.”

Asked whether his aggressive start might have been counterproductive over the long distance, he dismissed the idea. “For me it felt better to give the maximum for the first ten laps and have fun. Then what happened, I already knew from the Sprint—because the tyres were already destroyed there. I couldn’t take any insights from it,” he said.

The Red Bull Ring also underlined how deep Yamaha’s problems run beyond Quartararo. Speedweek reported that Jack Miller’s Sunday was particularly harsh: the Pramac rider finished 21st and last, 67.5 seconds behind race winner Pedro Acosta. Miller had qualified 21st, only ahead of his teammate Toprak Razgatlıoğlu, and was last again in the Sprint, 26.0 seconds adrift.

Miller said he was not prepared to sugarcoat what he saw. “I’m not happy and honestly I don’t even want to think about it. It’s pretty embarrassing,” he said after the race. He described the issue as something that became worse as the race progressed, explaining that from around lap 13 or 14 the rear tyre began to spin harder on the straight. “Then I was on the base rubber. In the middle there was a really wide strip of it to be seen,” he reported, adding that he had to be careful on turn-in because the rear could break loose at any moment.

Miller’s comments also captured the wider frustration with Yamaha’s ability to use its performance. He said he did not consider withdrawing the bike: “No, I’m not the kind of person who puts the motorcycle away. I’m here to do my job. The race is only over when it’s over.” He added, using a vivid comparison, “Of course it’s embarrassing to ride 1:38 times. Those are damn excavator times.” His blunt conclusion was that the job on Sunday had simply been to finish last: “Today this job was to become damn 21st.”

Speedweek’s report suggested Yamaha’s difficulties were not only tyre-related. Miller argued that the team cannot transfer the available power to the asphalt smoothly: “The others get the power onto the ground more gently when they accelerate out.” He also said the electronics were problematic throughout the weekend, though he felt Sunday was “a bit better,” while still not being something worth celebrating.

Miller stressed that even if Yamaha had more engine output, it would not solve the fundamental issue. “We could have 40 more horsepower and we still wouldn’t be able to use it. We would just spin,” he said. He pointed to Aprilia’s performance in Spielberg as proof of the contrast, noting that Aprilia riders finished behind Acosta in positions 2 to 4, and that “above all Aprilia manages really well to transfer the power and therefore use more power.”

The weekend also highlighted how tough the field is for Yamaha’s V4 package: even Marc Márquez, described as an exceptional performer, could not go beyond fifth in the long race.