Miguel Oliveira has acknowledged that he is at risk of losing out in the Yamaha MotoGP 2026 seat shuffle - despite having joined on a nominal two-year deal this year.
Oliveira got off to a rocky start on the Yamaha M1 through the pre-season and at the season opener, before suffering a bad dislocation of the sternum and clavicle after being crashed into by Fermin Aldeguer at Termas in March.
It effectively wrote off a couple of months of Oliveira's season, and he has toiled to get back on pace since his return - hampered by both a lack of race fitness and a lack of familiarity with the Yamaha M1, now different to the bike he'd started the season with thanks to the introduction of a new engine and a new chassis.
Yamaha's apparent interest in bringing Toprak Razgatlioglu into MotoGP means it's unlikely to continue with the same Pramac line-up of Jack Miller and Oliveira into next year - and while Miller is the one who'd signed a one-year deal, it increasingly sounds like Oliveira's the rider in the firing line.
Pramac team boss Gino Borsoi acknowledged during Friday practice at Aragon that talks with Razgatlioglu and his camp were ongoing - though insisted nothing was signed - and made it pretty clear it wasn't just a question of whether or not the out-of-contract Miller gets replaced by Razgatlioglu.
The Race's sources in the paddock suggested earlier in the weekend that a clause exists in Oliveira's contract - tied to him being the last Yamaha rider in the standings, which he currently is by a solid margin - that would allow Pramac and Yamaha to field someone else for 2026.
"Toprak is welcome to MotoGP," said Oliveira on Friday when asked about Razgatlioglu. "If there is a window for anyone to sign him - yeah, why not. Of course, if Yamaha needs to make space to fit in Toprak, well...they will have to see but I trust their decision.
"I'm not resistant to the idea, but there is basically not much more I can say about it. It's not official, it's a rumour, it's not signed, so I don't know what I can say."
But when asked about Razgatlioglu's potential arrival creating a shootout with Miller to keep his seat for 2026, Oliveira gave an answer that gave credence to the existence of the aforementioned clause.
"Pressure? Yeah, for sure. If this is it, I have to put the performance.
"Of course, this season didn't start the way I like to.
"I was, let's say, taken out - and being so long off the track, when you're trying to learn a bike that is not an easy bike, you need to adapt, you come in and you have a different bike, updated...
"I rode these last two races not well - and then basically until the summer break I have to show my skills. That's it."
Oliveira was last of the Yamaha riders in Friday practice at Aragon, describing his afternoon as a "disaster" in which "everything was bad". He seemed to be suffering from the same electronics software 'misbehaviour' as Fabio Quartararo, with both riders struggling to put a representative lap in during soft-tyre qualifying-like runs.
"I kept highsiding in every left corner, also on entry the feeling of the bike sliding and coming in was not normal. There is something really big that we need to change, especially in the electronics, to try to use the bike in a time attack mode for tomorrow morning."
