Image: Supplied.

Red Bull Ring exposed track-specific weaknesses of Yamaha’s YZR-M1, with Jack Miller conceding that ‘our bike simply doesn’t work with this rear tyre’ after finishing a lowly 18th on Sunday.

Round 13 of the 2025 MotoGP World Championship in Austria marked a difficult outing for Prima Pramac Racing Yamaha’s Miller, finishing as the fourth and final factory M1 at the rear of the field.

The characteristics of the Spielberg circuit – comprised of hard braking and violent acceleration zones as well as an aging, low-grip surface – provided tough conditions, coupled with a stiffer Michelin rear tyre compound that didn’t complement the package.

“There‘s not much to say after a very, very difficult weekend for all of us – it’s disappointing, to say the least,” reflected Miller. “I felt good for the first five laps… and by ‘good’, I mean the grip was acceptable, but it was the kind of grip we should normally have at the end of a race, not at the beginning. And here, we never had that level at all.

“It’s quite clear on paper that this weekend our bike simply doesn’t work with this rear tyre and its construction. There‘s just no way to make it work. I tried everything I know, from short-shifting to being super patient on the throttle, just trying to find a way to defend myself.”

Highlighting the front-end precision of his current specification Yamaha MotoGP contender, the 30-year-old has called for more work to be done on the rear, with the current combination failing to load at higher speeds.

“Once you reach around 120km/h, when the momentum should be enough, we start losing load on the rear, [and] the bike spins like crazy in a straight line,” Miller continued. “There‘s nothing you can do about it – the front end of the YZR-M1 is phenomenal, but the rear is the limitation, and we need to work hard to understand how to improve it.”

Upon returning from the annual European summer break, the second leg of the MotoGP World Championship season is now underway, with the Grand Prix of Hungary at Balaton Park taking place from August 22-24. Miller has now fallen to 17th in the championship classification.