It was a pair of first-time MotoGP wins within a fortnight that showed why MotoGP has never been more stacked than the 22-rider line-up on the grid in 2025.
And it was a pair of victories that pushed Jack Miller’s 11th premier-class season into an unwanted spotlight.
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In Indonesia in early October, Spanish rookie Fermin Aldeguer snared his maiden MotoGP victory for Gresini Ducati, the 20-year-old becoming the second-youngest premier-class winner in the history of the world championship to Marc Marquez in 2013, and taking the first victory for a rookie since Jorge Martin in 2021.
Two weeks later, Aldeguer’s compatriot Raul Fernandez was a shock winner of the Australian Grand Prix for Trackhouse Aprilia, the 25-year-old successful on his 76th MotoGP start in his fourth season after never having led a lap or finished on a premier-class Grand Prix podium before Phillip Island.
Those initial successes of Aldeguer and Fernandez went against the narrative of the Marquez-dominated season, the seven-time MotoGP champ crashing out on lap one in Indonesia, and then undergoing right shoulder surgery that sidelined him initially for Australia, and subsequently the rest of the year.
Caveats aside, both results only illuminated Miller’s 2025 campaign for Yamaha, one that started with plenty of justifiable promise and a top-five result as early as round three in Texas, but has largely fizzled out since.
With just two rounds of 2025 left in Portugal (November 7-9) and Valencia (November 14-16), the 30-year-old is on course for his worst season by any number of metrics since he was a rookie for Honda in 2015, moving straight from his Moto3 runner-up season to the top flight as a 20-year-old and bypassing Moto2 altogether.
It’s not all doom and gloom for Miller – after all, he has a 2026 contract with Pramac Yamaha after the Japanese brand used a performance clause to lever his teammate Miguel Oliveira out of a seat for next year to make way for incoming World Superbikes champion Toprak Razgatlioglu – and he fulfils a very specific job requirement for MotoGP’s slowest manufacturer, Yamaha sitting at the foot of the constructors’ championship after being overtaken by Honda this season.
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For Australia to have a representative on a 22-rider grid where 18 of them – thanks to Aldeguer and Fernandez – have now won premier-class Grands Prix is an achievement in itself.
MotoGP has never had a grid with more winners, and even with Marquez reasserting his dominance after six years in an injury-induced wilderness this season, race-winners and podium finishers can be at the front one week, and nowhere the next.
It’s a tough, even field where the margins between glory or misery are slim. Which adds context to a suite of statistics for Miller that make for sobering reading.
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Miller’s stunning qualifying result in Australia was historic, but an outlier in a so-so season. (Yamaha Motor Racing Srl)Source: Supplied
PODIUM DROUGHT NOW THE GRID’S LONGEST
It was all going so well for Miller in early 2023, when – in just the fourth round of his new two-year contract with KTM after surviving on one-year hand-to-mouth deals with Ducati for the majority of his tenure there – he finished third in both the sprint and Grand Prix at the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, leaving him in fourth place in the championship standings.
It remains his most recent Grand Prix podium.
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There’s been near-misses since that time – he led the final round of 2023 in Valencia for five laps before crashing out – but Fernandez’s first MotoGP podium in Australia means Miller has the longest gap between podiums (of those riders who have earned one) of all the full-timers on the 2025 grid.
MotoGP starts since most recent Grand Prix podium
(full-time riders only, after Malaysia 2025)
55: Jack Miller (most recent podium: Spain 2023)
50: Miguel Oliveira (Thailand 2022)
41: Alex Rins (Americas 2022)
38: Brad Binder (Qatar 2024)
37: Luca Marini (Qatar 2023)
30: Maverick Vinales (Americas 2024)
16: Franco Morbidelli (Qatar 2025), Ai Ogura (yet to finish on a Grand Prix podium)
15: Fabio Quartararo (Spain 2025), Somkiat Chantra (yet to finish on a Grand Prix podium)
13: Johann Zarco (Great Britain 2025)
6: Jorge Martin (Barcelona 2024)
5: Enea Bastianini (Catalunya 2025)
3: Francesco Bagnaia (Japan 2025)
2: Fermin Aldeguer (Indonesia 2025)
1: Raul Fernandez (Australia 2025), Fabio Di Giannantonio (Australia 2025), Marco Bezzecchi (Australia 2025), Marc Marquez (Japan 2025)
0: Alex Marquez (Malaysia 2025), Pedro Acosta (Malaysia 2025), Joan Mir (Malaysia 2025)
It’s a stat that comes with context; of those closest to the unwanted top spot on this list, Oliveira has also ridden a Yamaha this season, while Rins is in his second year with Yamaha after crossing from Honda at the end of 2023, and been a shadow of himself as he’s battled injuries and surgery recoveries since a career-changing accident at the Italian Grand Prix of 2023.
Rookies Ai Ogura and Somkiat Chantra haven’t yet made the rostrum; Thai rider Chantra, who has scored seven points all season and is out of MotoGP next year, almost certainly won’t. But Fernandez’s belated breakthrough brings Miller’s drought of well over two years into focus.
2025: GOOD START LEADS TO FLAT FINISH
Much like his KTM tenure, Miller’s move to Yamaha this year to ride for Pramac Racing – the same Pramac he raced Ducatis for from 2018-20 – began with a bang.
In round one in Thailand, Miller qualified a stunning fourth with a ‘where did that come from?’ lap that had Yamaha stablemate and 2021 MotoGP world champion Fabio Quartararo in awe.
Two Grands Prix later in Austin, Miller finished fifth at the Circuit of the Americas in a result a jubilant Pramac team director Gino Borsoi described as being “like a victory” and lifted the Aussie inside the world championship’s top 10.
Since then? There’s only been intermittent flashes.
Miller looked the part in Texas, but fifth place remains his best Grand Prix result of the year 17 rounds later. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)Source: AFP
In the 17 rounds from Austin in March to Malaysia last weekend, Miller has scored points in the sprint and Grand Prix in just two events, Great Britain in round seven and Germany four rounds later.
In the past nine sprints, he’s scored points just once, when he finished an out-of-nowhere fourth in Australia after qualifying on the front row of his home Grand Prix for the first time, and for the first time for a local rider since Casey Stoner 13 years previously.
In the past nine rounds from the Sachsenring to Sepang, Miller has just one top-10 Grand Prix finish (10th in the Czech Republic in July).
With two rounds remaining, Miller sits in 18th place in the standings with 68 points, ahead only of Yamaha stablemates Rins and Oliveira, 2024 world champion Martin (who has started 13 of the 40 races across sprints and Grands Prix because of myriad injuries) and Chantra.
Miller sits just four points behind KTM’s Vinales (who is out injured) and 11 behind Aprilia rookie Ogura with two rounds to go, which are achievable deficits. Regardless, it’s not where a rider in their 30s and in their 11th season wants to be.
Miller seasons by championship position (worst to best)
2015 (Honda): 19th
2025 (Yamaha)*: 18th
2016 (Honda): 18th
2024 (KTM)*: 14th
2018 (Ducati): 13th
2023 (KTM)*: 11th
2017 (Honda): 11th
2019 (Ducati): 8th
2020 (Ducati): 7th
2022 (Ducati): 5th
2021 (Ducati): 4th
Miller seasons by points scored (worst to best)
2015: 17
2016: 57
2025*: 68
2017: 82
2024*: 87
2018: 91
2020: 132
2023*: 163
2019: 165
2021: 181
2022: 189
* Seasons with sprint races (maximum of an additional 12 points per round)
Miller spent four laps in second place behind Quartararo early in the British Grand Prix in May; they’re the only laps of the 392 he’s raced in Grands Prix this year in the podium places, his lowest for a single season since his pre-Ducati days.
Miller seasons by Grand Prix laps in top three (worst to best)
2015: 0
2025: 4
2017: 7
2016: 15
2024: 16
2018: 26
2023: 69
2019: 99
2021: 133
2020: 137
2022: 209
Miller led factory Ducati heavy-hitters Bagnaia and Marquez in the early stages at Silverstone in May. (Yamaha Motor Racing Srl)Source: Supplied
CRASH STATS SHOW RISK VERSUS REWARD
Miller is towards the top of one table in 2025, but not one that you’d want to be near the summit of.
MotoGP’s annual – and sometimes morbid – fascination with crash stats paints a picture of the 2025 season, but doesn’t explain context.
The numbers, though, don’t lie.
Crashes in 2025
(full-time riders only, after Malaysia 2025)
28: Zarco
24: Miller
22: A. Marquez
21: Mir
20: Morbidelli, Acosta
18: Bezzecchi
16: Aldeguer, Binder
15: Bastianini
14: M. Marquez, Ogura
12: Quartararo
11: Fernandez
9: Bagnaia, Rins, Oliveira
8: Martin, Chantra
5: Di Giannantonio, Vinales
1: Marini
Miller’s 24 crashes in 2025 – compared to the 30 combined for fellow Yamaha riders Quartararo, Rins and Oliveira – show that the Australian is prepared to test the limits of his machinery and live with the consequences more than his stablemates, which could help Yamaha as much as hinder it.
Honda’s climb up the standings this season to improved competitiveness – Zarco has won a Grand Prix, Mir has taken podiums in two of the past four – comes against a backdrop of the Frenchman and Spaniard sitting inside the top four for most crashes; Mir, sometimes through no fault of his own, has 16 non-finishes to his name this year in 38 starts. HRC factory teammate Marini, on the flip side, crashed for the first time all season in last Saturday’s sprint race in Malaysia.
Miller’s numbers aren’t demonstrably worse this year than last – in 2024, his second KTM campaign, he crashed 20 times to sit fourth overall – and while it’s not the sole reason for his dwindling points tally, it is a factor. You only need to consider his response to falling at Phillip Island while on course for a top-six result to see the toll it has taken.
Miller’s heartbreaking reaction to crash | 00:31
THE SILVER LINING
That aforementioned very specific job requirement that Miller will fill for Yamaha in 2026?
His combination of experience, technical know-how, willingness to push the boundaries until they snap and his reputation as a team player for a powerhouse factory that has fallen on hard times earned him a reprieve for next season that his stats – on face value – arguably shouldn’t have.
With Yamaha finally admitting its inline-four engine – which has propelled so much of its MotoGP successes with Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and then Quartararo – is a thing of the past as its throws its weight behind a V4 engine project to bring it into line with Ducati, KTM, Aprilia and Honda, Miller’s background will be a key part of its short-term progress, and the longer-term plan to prevent Quartararo from frustratedly moving elsewhere when the 2027 850cc regulation reset coincides with the majority of the current grid being out of contract, the Frenchman – along with Marc Marquez – arguably the biggest player in a rider market silly season that will go supersonic.
Quartararo and Miller swapped feedback after the post-San Marino Grand Prix test session at Misano in September. (Yamaha Motor Racing Srl)Source: Supplied
Miller’s entire pre-2025 career was spent riding V4s for Honda, Ducati and KTM, and his work testing parts for Ducati when riding with Pramac from 2018-20 played a significant role in his promotion to Ducati’s factory team for 2021-22, seasons where teammate Francesco Bagnaia finished as runner-up and champion respectively on a bike Miller’s fingerprints were all over.
While his results on track at KTM tapered off, his work on the bike’s electronics was lauded internally. For Yamaha’s four-rider line-up for 2026, and with Rins still nowhere near 100 per cent fit and Razgatlioglu coming in as a Superbikes champion in his late 20s with no experience of MotoGP machinery or Michelin tyres, Miller’s specific set of positive traits made his retention, in the end, a no-brainer despite his results curve heading downwards.
It’s a career life raft that will only float for so long, though.
Miller’s experience – he became the first Australian rider in the world championship’s history to reach 250 starts across all categories at Phillip Island, and will finish 2025 on 198 premier-class Grands Prix, top 10 all-time – is invaluable.
But the results need an uptick, and he knows it.
Speaking in the recent Phillip Island pre-race press conference while flanked by a rookie in Aldeguer and a sophomore in Acosta, he’s not eyeing a MotoGP finish line just yet.
“It’s awesome to reach that number, and with 2026 and beyond … my plans don’t end in 2026,” he said of his 250th milestone.
“I feel like I’ve still got a lot more to give, and I feel like the best is yet to come. We’ll keep plugging away at it [with Yamaha], keep trying to find our way back to the front end.
“We’ve got a couple of young Spanish sitting up here, and some old Australian …”.