Third position on the Spanish GP grid for John McPhee in Jerez

 In Moto3, News

PETRONAS Sprinta Racing’s John McPhee will start tomorrow’s Moto3 race at Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto, Spain, from the front row of the grid after qualifying third. Team-mate Khairul Idham Pawi will start from 30th.

After posting consistently strong times during the one-day test on Wednesday and in yesterday’s free practice session, McPhee continued this strong form in the FP3 this morning and earned himself a place in Q2. The Scot posted the second fastest time of the qualifying session, but was knocked down to third in the closing minutes. McPhee improved his time on the final lap but ultimately rounded out the session in third, which was enough to secure a front row start for tomorrow’s race.

Coming into this weekend after the enforced break, plus the near year out of racing to recover from injury before the Qatar GP, team-mate KIP was facing an increased challenge to be back up to speed. Battling the heat, the Malaysian’s free practice times were not enough to earn him an automatic place in the second qualifying session. KIP was making vast improvements in his final flying lap of the Q1 session, but unfortunately a mistake saw him run wide in Turn 11. This left him with a best lap time of 1min 48.898secs and will see him start tomorrow’s race from 30th.

Tomorrow’s race day action will kick off with the Moto3 Warm Up session at 8.20am local time (2.20pm MYT), before the lights go out for the second Moto3 race of the year at 11am local time (5pm MYT).

John McPhee

I’m really happy to be on the front row, especially after four long months away from the racetrack. It’s a really nice way to say thanks to the team for all the hard work they’ve put in. My pace has been consistent throughout the test on Wednesday and all day yesterday and we’ve worked on tyre life to make sure that I can put the lap times in that we need to at the end of the race. To be able to pull a strong lap time out the bag in these hot temperatures is something that I’m really pleased with.

On the first lap of the qualifying session, on the exit of Turn 8 I had a huge highside. Both legs were over the side of the bike and I had to swing one leg back over the bike to get going again, I was very close to crashing! My target for tomorrow is the podium, this needs to be my target every race. It’s a short but very fast season, so we need to be clever. I’ve been doing some heat training as well so I feel good at the moment with the temperatures. I feel strong for tomorrow so I’m excited to see what happens.

Khairul Idham Pawi

In the last lap of qualifying I nearly lost the front in Turn 11, which meant I lost the lap. It was some bad luck to have that happen in my final flying lap but I think that tomorrow I can make progress in the race and have some good battles with those around me. I struggled a little in the morning session but at the start of qualifying I was feeling good. I’d like to finish in the points in the race but I know it will not be easy. I’ll do my best to finish as high as we can and I’m looking forward to being back racing.

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