Hard fought points forRaul Fernandez and Albert Arenas in France

John McPhee confirmed the good form he showed to take pole position yesterday with victory in the Moto3 at Le Mans by just 0.106 seconds over Lorenzo dalla Porta and Aron Canet today. The trio were part of a compact lead group over the early laps but with six laps to go a crash involving Tatsuki Suzuki and Tony Arbolino brought a whole bunch of riders into the podium fight. Canet held firm to claim third place and maintain his series lead on a day that saw one of his main rivals Jaume Masiá finish twelfth.

The French Grand Prix proved to be a hard-fought one for both Raúl Fernández and Albert Arenas, who crossed the line in formation in tenth and eleventh position after starting 20th and 14th respectively. Fernández made up ten positions over the 22-lap race and finally made it to the lead group at the end.

His teammate Albert Arenas led the fight to cut back the four-second deficit to the lead group after the early break but ultimately he paid the price for his starting position, with his performance warranting a much better result.

10th Raúl Fernández:
“It was a difficult race, with a lot of crashes, and we have to be happy with the job we have done even though we need to take another step forward and make the bike faster. We know we can be fighting for more and it hurts to not be doing that. The race was close, with a big group. The bad thing was that my foot was hurting a lot over the last few laps. Hopefully I can be fitter for Mugello. Today we have picked up six points and we have to keep going like this. I believe we can be fighting for top five finishes if we can find what we are looking for. We are working on it because the team and myself believe we can win races.”

11th Albert Arenas:
“It has been a tough, difficult race. From the first few laps to the end we made up four seconds on the leader and that is a positive but the bad thing is I felt I couldn’t defend my position under acceleration. After a bad qualifying the objective was to finish the race and score points. We gave it our best shot and we take five points home from France.”