John McPhee in the top three on opening day of Spanish GP weekend

The first day of the Gran Premio de España saw PETRONAS Sprinta Racing’s John McPhee set the third fastest time across the two Moto3 free practice sessions, with team-mate Khairul Idham Pawi 23rd.

McPhee continued his good form from the one-day test held on Wednesday around the 4.4km Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto, finishing within the top-six riders in both free practice sessions. The morning session saw slightly faster times than the afternoon due to the temperature rising steadily throughout the day. McPhee set his best FP2 lap time on used tyres with a 1min 47.129 secs lap placing him sixth. His 1min 46.102 secs lap from FP1 saw him end the day third in the combined times.

Team-mate KIP experienced some issues with the intense heat later on in the day, but was able to complete a good amount of laps across the two sessions. After setting a 1min 47.089secs lap in the morning, which placed him 22nd, the Malaysian tested a series of small set up changes in the afternoon to improve his riding position. He finished the second session 25th with a 1min 48.453 secs lap time and ended the day 23rd in the combined times, thanks to his quickest FP1 lap.

Tomorrow the PETRONAS Sprinta Racing pair will have one final practice session at 9am local time (3pm MYT) before the first qualifying session gets underway at 12.35pm local time (6.35pm MYT).

John McPhee
3rd (1’46.102)

It’s been a productive day, we had a plan in place and we stuck to it. We worked to our own rhythm all day and I’m really happy with the pace we had. In the end we only used one soft tyre today, so that’s really good. The lap time in the morning was strong but we can do better and we’ve got tomorrow morning to improve on that before qualifying. In FP2 we had the used tyre on all session and still ended up sixth, so I’m really happy with how the day has gone.

Khairul Idham Pawi
23rd (1’47.089)

It’s quite difficult today, especially in the afternoon with the high temperatures. We had some issues with the soft tyre, so we had to work on this to improve it. The times were very close in FP1 so we know how much we need to improve by to be in with a chance of getting through to Qualifying 2. We’ve made some tweaks to the bike to improve my position and it feels good. Tomorrow is another day and we’ll be trying to get the best lap time possible.