Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. is delighted to make a first update on its factory rider line-up for the 2025 Coca-Cola Suzuka 8-Hours Endurance Road Race. After eight years, MotoGP star Jack Miller is set to make his return to FIM Endurance World Championship racing with the factory Yamaha Racing Team. Miller will team with seasoned Suzuka 8-Hours rider Katsuyuki Nakasuga, under the guidance of Team Manager Wataru Yoshikawa, for the 46th edition of the FIM Endurance World Championship Coca-Cola Suzuka 8-Hours Endurance Road Race.
The Suzuka 8-Hours event is one of Japan’s most prestigious motorcycle races, and the 2025 edition holds extra significance for Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. as they celebrate their 70th anniversary this year.
Yamaha was founded on July 1, 1955, and its motorsports activities started only 9 days later at the 3rd Mount Fuji Ascent Race on July 10. To commemorate this upcoming milestone, Yamaha will enter a factory equipe at the Suzuka 8-Hours for the first time since 2019.
Miller already has experience in endurance racing. He took part in the Suzuka 8-Hours once before in 2017. Though he finished just off the podium in fourth place, he caught the endurance racing bug and fell in love with the prominent Japanese event. He has been dreaming of a do-over ever since, and he feels all the more honoured to have been selected by Yamaha for the 2025 factory line-up.
Katsuyuki Nakasuga played an integral part in Yamaha Factory Racing Team’s four-consecutive victories (2015-2018) and is also a 12-time All Japan Road Race JSB1000 Champion. Yamaha’s third rider for the 2025 Suzuka 8-Hours event will be selected from Yamaha’s current crop of WorldSBK riders, with an announcement to follow shortly.
The appointed Team Manager for the factory entry is a rider who himself contested in the 1999 Suzuka 8-Hours and took the All Japan Road Racing Superbike title that same year: Wataru Yoshikawa, one of Yamaha’s iconic stars of the 1990s.
The Yamaha Racing Team will complete two private test days on July 3-4 before they officially return to action at the 46th Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race on Friday, August 1 when practice and qualifying get underway ahead of the traditional Top Ten Trial on Saturday and the Race on Sunday.
Jack Miller made his road racing debut in 2009 after starting his career on dirt and soon made his appearance in the 125cc World Championship. Taking the IDM 125 crown on his way to full-time competition on the world stage, Miller first impressed in 2013 when he proved to be a consistent frontrunner with Racing Team Germany. Finishing as the Vice Champion with Red Bull KTM Ajo in 2014, Miller made the incredible move from Moto3 straight to MotoGP in 2015 with the LCR Honda team.
Following a tough rookie season, Miller moved to the Marc VDS Racing Team. He took a stunning maiden win at the 2016 Dutch GP in heavy rain that flooded the TT circuit at Assen, after starting the season with a broken leg. With a good number of top-10 results, Miller remained with the Marc VDS team for 2017, impressing once again before moving to Pramac Racing for the 2018 season, switching from Honda to Ducati.
It was a solid season for the Australian, highlighted by a superb pole position at the Argentinian GP: his growth and competitiveness secured him a place on the Pramac Ducati for 2019. It was a season in which Miller improved his results with five podiums, and he added four more in the following year, his third with the Pramac team, which secured him the team’s factory bike for the 2021 season.
His debut year as a Ducati factory rider turned out to be the best of his career so far, with Miller taking two wins, three other podiums, and a fourth place in the overall standings. In 2022 the Aussie again proved his quality with seven podiums, including the best MotoGP performance of his career when he dominated the race in Japan. Miller – who proved to be a great help to Francesco Bagnaia in the Italian’s hunt for his first MotoGP World Title – finished the season in fifth place overall with 189 points.
After five years with Ducati, Miller swapped his red leathers for KTM’s orange in 2023, claiming a double podium at the Spanish GP and another Sprint podium at the German GP and ending the season in 11th before a difficult 2024 season saw him finish 14th in the riders’ standings.
Because there is nothing like the air of home to rejuvenate, Miller returned to Paolo Campinoti’s court in 2025 as one of the two riders defending the Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP colours as a Yamaha factory rider.
Miller showed quick adaptability to the YZR-M1, with a fifth place at the Grand Prix of The Americas Race as a highlight.
Jack Miller
Place of Birth: Townsville, Queensland, Australia
Nationality: Australian
Instagram: @jackmilleraus
Height: 173 cm
Weight: 64 kg
First Grand Prix: 2011 German GP (125cc)
2025 MotoGP World Championship (17th – 20 points) [With Prima Pramac Yamaha MotoGP after the British GP Sprint]
Yamaha‘s factory effort at Suzuka began in earnest in 1985. Before 2002, Yamaha had at times fielded international star-studded full factory teams and had hoisted the winner‘s trophy high beneath the firework-filled skies at Suzuka a total of four times: in 1987, 1988, 1990, and 1996.
From 2003 onward, Yamaha discontinued having full factory team entries and limited itself to a support role assisting Europe-based Yamaha teams competing as part of the FIM Endurance World Championship.
However, in 2015 Yamaha brought back its full factory team to highlight its 60th anniversary and the release of an all-new YZF-R1. After taking Yamaha’s fifth win at the Suzuka 8-Hours that year in stunning fashion following a 19-year drought, the Yamaha Factory Racing Team was nigh unbeatable, winning the race again the next two years for a hat-trick of victories. With 2018 marking the YZF-R1’s 20th anniversary, a special red-and-white race livery was run to commemorate the original R1, and the factory team secured a record-setting fourth straight win.
In 2019, the Yamaha Factory Racing Team sported a revival of the colour scheme used by the legendary 1985 Yamaha TECH21 Team, the origin of Yamaha’s now iconic #21 race number. The factory squad battled for victory the entire race. Though a record-resetting fifth consecutive win eluded the team, the race was a thrilling addition to the storied history of the Suzuka 8 Hours.
In 2020 and 2021, the Suzuka 8-Hours was cancelled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, but it returned to the EWC calendar in 2022. However, the Yamaha Factory Racing Team did not take part in the 2022, 2023, or 2024 editions, but Yamaha still landed a podium.
In 2024, the Yamalube YART Yamaha EWC Official Team (YART) secured their first pole position since 2012 and 2013 (both set by Nakasuga) thanks to Marvin Fritz recording a 2’05.130s lap in the Top 10 Trial. It was Yamaha’s first pole since 2017 and 2019 (also both set by Nakasuga).
Niccolò Canepa was chosen to ride the opening stint for the Race. Canepa, Fritz, and Karel Hanika, showed grit in the 8-hour competition, riding in extreme temperatures and high humidity. In the end, YART completed 220 laps, the same as the leader, which set a record for the most laps ever recorded in a Suzuka 8-Hours race. The YART team finished on the podium in second place, 7.86s from the winners (after the 40-second penalty that the ‘Team HRC with Japan Post’ received for violating a rule during their final pit stop). It was the YART team’s first time visiting the Suzuka 8 Hours rostrum.
As part of Yamaha’s 70th anniversary celebrations, the factory Yamaha Racing Team will make a comeback in the renowned Suzuka 8-Hours event this year with the rider line-up consisting of 12-time All Japan Road Race JSB1000 Champion and Suzuka 8-Hours legend Katsuyuki Nakasuga, MotoGP-star Jack Miller, and one of Yamaha’s WorldSBK riders (to be announced shortly).
The appointed Team Manager for the factory team, Wataru Yoshikawa, is a rider who himself contested the 1999 Suzuka 8-Hours on the YZF-R7 in addition to winning an All Japan title on that iconic machine. He was one of Yamaha’s star factory riders in the 1990s and is to many a representative of that era of racing.
The 2025 team will race a specially liveried YZF-R1, adorned with the traditional #21. The special new design is inspired by Yamaha Racing Team’s YZF-R7 that Yoshikawa rode in 1999. The YZF-R7 model was first released in that year in a limited edition of 500 units worldwide.
In 2025, the team is called ‘Yamaha Racing Team’ as this name was used by Yamaha’s factory Suzuka 8-Hours team in the late 1990s. The 2025 team logo is a version of the logo used at the time with an updated motif. Rider and team staff clothing and the look of the team’s garage are also coordinated to reflect the 1999 design.
1987 – Shiseido TECH21 Racing Team – YZF750 (Martin Wimmer, Kevin Magee)