KTM motorsport director Pit Beirer admits his happiness at signing Maverick Vinales and Enea Bastianini is tinged with sadness at ‘giving up’ Jack Miller and Augusto Fernandez.
Miller, a MotoGP race winner for Honda (1) and Ducati (3), joined Red Bull KTM at the start of the 2023 campaign.
After a promising start to his RC16 career, culminating in a double podium during round four at Jerez, the Australian has been absent from the rostrum since and is currently only 16th in this year’s standings.
Although rookie star Pedro Acosta was confirmed as taking over Miller’s factory KTM team place alongside Brad Binder for 2025, Miller seemed to have a good chance of slotting into Acosta’s seat at Tech3.
But KTM pulled off a surprise by signing not only Enea Bastianini from Ducati but Maverick Vinales from Aprilia to form the future Tech3 line-up.
“As you can imagine, we are happy people right now because we could get a [rider] package together for the future that is very, very promising. With Enea and Maverick, we have two more very strong riders on board,” Beirer told a small group of media during a video call on Friday morning.
“But this also means giving up on two riders, who are with us at the moment.
“You [media] followed the market as well as we did. And Mugello was kind of the moment because everything happened really quick,” Beirer added. “The window to get these two boys on board was really, really short.
“So at the end, I’m really super excited that, if you just look at the facts, what kind of great riders we have together [for 2025]. It’s another step to move the whole package forward.”
Nonetheless: “Giving up on Jack and Augusto is really sad.
“I really was hoping that we could get Jack back on the level where he should be. In Mugello, being out of the points, that’s not where Jack Miller should be.
“And no matter what the future brings, we have to turn that around, because that’s not how we’re going to end our relationship.
“I thought we could give a bit longer to both of the boys [Miller and Fernandez], but the market was so much under pressure.
“If you didn’t take the chance in that one week [around Mugello], you just wouldn’t have those chances anymore.
“So we took the hard decision to move forward [with different riders]. So it’s kind of giving up on something that was not the plan. Definitely not.”
“Jack made our bike better… but maybe he’s the last to benefit”
Although Miller’s results have been disappointing of late, Beirer was quick to highlight the contribution he has made to the RC16 project.
Ironically, the changes in areas such as set-up and electronics that Miller and former Ducati crew chief Cristhian Pupulin instigated have proved a bigger benefit for other KTM riders.
“It’s no secret – I’ve said it before – Jack, his crew chief and then the team they did something to the bike, which we never did before,” Beirer said.
“So at the beginning of last year, they extended the potential of KTM. They showed us new things where we didn’t want to go with the KTM before. So he made us better.
“But already last year in the second part of the season, Brad could benefit much more from what Jack did to the bike than Jack himself. So Jack started to have problems during last year and we could never recover from that.
“I still sign for it, that Jack made our bike better and it looks like at the moment he’s maybe the last one to benefit from that. And so our target now – not mid-term, not long-term, but for Assen – is to get Jack back on track.
“Something for him is missing to get a good feeling on the bike and we need to find that. We lost that somewhere along the way.”
“Jack is not done yet”
Beirer alluded to Miller’s preferred bike set-up being “different” to the others and that “he could also choose Pedro’s set-up” if he wanted, before underlining that it’ll be a ‘win-win’ situation if they can turn his season around.
“That’s the target, to get him back, to give him also the platform to shine because I want him to stay in MotoGP. I want him to have a good future and find a good ride,” Beirer said.
“So the better he can perform with us, it’s win-win. We get better results and it hopefully helps him also to get a good future in this sport.
“So I feel Jack is not done yet.”
Miller’s 2025 options could include a return to Honda, where he began his MotoGP career. Or Pramac, the satellite team that he raced for from 2018-2020, which is pondering a switch from Ducati to Yamaha.
Fernandez, one place behind Miller in the standings, is thought to have options in WorldSBK or Moto2 if he is unable to secure an alternative premier-class ride.