Pramac Yamaha's ousted MotoGP rider Miguel Oliveira says the wait for the decision on his future has been "stomach-twisting" - even though he had known his place on the grid was under threat for a while.
Pramac's announcement that Jack Miller has been re-signed for 2026 was effectively confirmation that Oliveira drops off the grid after seven seasons, despite him having joined the Yamaha satellite team on a two-year 2025-2026 deal with the manufacturer.
The deal contained a break clause that has been activated, with that being made more straightforward by Oliveira's early-season injury from being crashed into by rookie Fermin Aldeguer.
He struggled to find big form since his return so never sounded likely to hang on to the seat, with Yamaha having already confirmed World Superbike champion Toprak Razgatlioglu for a 2026 Pramac ride a few months ago - and having chased Moto2's Diogo Moreira before being rejected and committing to a Miller extension.
Asked if his impending exit at the end of 2025 has come as a surprise, Oliveira said: "I knew there was this decision pending, of course, but it came as a surprise in the sense of the whole picture.
"When I decided to join in 2024, this project was on a 1+1 year deal with a performance clause in the mid-season of the first year. The idea was to get two experienced riders on the second team, just to try to get feedback and help transition the project.
"And I am sure it was conditioned by two key moments - the first moment was the injury, where I came back too late into the season, where the decision on the second rider was already made for Pramac [in signing Razgatlioglu].
"So, kind of, I felt like the weakest link because I was coming from an injury and every race was kind of a 'prove yourself, show us what you're worth'. And, I mean, it's OK to have pressure but that kind of pressure is a bit...yeah. I don't want to say 'unfair', it's not up to me to judge that.
"It was like this. And the decision actually taking so long was creating more anxiety maybe, and coming here [to media scrums], and getting all - you guys have been, I guess, normal about it, it was not a massacre, but there was always this topic pending, and you guys always asked, so coming into the weekends having to deal with that, plus with your stomach really twisting sometimes because you don't know anything.
"And yeah, the decision came late, in Balaton when finally the rookie [Moreira] Yamaha was trying to get said no, otherwise it would've been a different line-up than the one you're looking at at the moment. It's one of those things. You may not agree, you may not find it the best, but it is what it is."
Treated fairly?
Oliveira said it was a "difficult thing to answer" over whether he'd shown enough performance to stay on.
"MotoGP is not a linear thing in terms of analysing performance. Even guys who stay many, many years on the same bike, they struggle for some reason on another that you might not really find a technical explanation why.
"You look at [Brad] Binder, you look at Pecco [Bagnaia] now maybe struggling a little bit more. And they've all been on the same bikes for many, many years.
"I've been jumping on different bikes from year to year. I think there's a period where you need to adapt; there's a period where you're kind of there but you crash, you learn a few things; and there's the period where you actually start to capitalise the result. I feel I'm still on this transition of capitalising the result.
"It has not come for me yet. But it's true that the last few months the bike has been not the perfect bike to ride - see Austria for example, the four Yamahas last on the grid."
Asked whether it was fair that there was no uproar regarding Yamaha's decision to terminate a contract when Jorge Martin's attempt to leave Aprilia through an injury-influenced clause early in the season had got him so much public grief, Oliveira said "it's not really up to me to judge".
"At the end of the day, it's a job of passion, a lot of passion comes into this, it's a goal, it's a childhood dream to go to MotoGP, to ride a bike, to have this privilege, it's quite big. But at the same time it's a job.
"And as any job, you have a boss and the boss decides, makes decisions. I said before that this came as a surprise - it came as a surprise in the sense of me talking to everybody in the team, the Japanese group, trying to get their feedback on how I'm doing, and they really seemed to like my feedback and the way I work. So, you kind of start to think that actually things can go in your favour.
"But finally there's one guy that decides, and that guy said nope, and that's it."
What next?
Oliveira's options appear to be between a test gig in MotoGP and a full-time seat in World Superbikes. As of the start of the Catalan Grand Prix weekend, he remains in two minds.
"On paper it looks like there's different doors open for me, and at the moment I haven't decided anything yet, I'm really open to hearing any suggestions that I might find interesting.
"My heart is really connected to this paddock and of course I know the thing available in this paddock might be only test rider, but to be linked to a factory, to help build a bike, is something stimulating, it's different. But also I really want to race."
Aprilia may be the best option for a MotoGP test rider role, whereas Oliveira's potential suitors in WSBK are thought to include BMW and Yamaha - with him confirming that "we are in talks" with the latter.
