Frustrating #EmiliaRomagnaGP Moto3 race for McPhee sees him finish tenth, KIP 24th

The Emilia Romagna GP proved to be a difficult taskmaster for PETRONAS Sprinta Racing’s John McPhee and Khairul Idham Pawi, with the Moto3 combo taking tenth and 24th respectively. Tenth for McPhee means the race winner last time out maintains third in the championship standings.

Both riders gained a position before the race started due to an injury-induced withdrawal from a rival rider but both riders had to work hard for subsequent progress. Nevertheless, John was able to join the leading pack with ten laps to go. Being forced wide with two laps to go denied the Scot from challenging for the podium and he finally crossed the line tenth, maintaining his third place in the championship standings.

Team-mate KIP didn’t have the best of starts, due to another rider, and found himself losing places on the opening lap. Continuing to build confidence aboard his Honda NSF250RW, the Malaysian had a quiet race, as he slightly improved his pace around the 4.2km circuit. KIP crossed the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli finish line 24th.

McPhee and KIP will now head straight into the ninth round of the Moto3 championship: the Gran Premi de Catalunya (25-27 September).

John McPhee
10th (+1.125)

Of course you need to look at the positives from this weekend, which is that we managed to climb from P19 forward to, at one moment, P7. Honestly it was a tough race, coming from P19 was never going to be easy and it was made harder with the race speeds being so much faster than last week. Everybody managed to find nearly one second per lap. It was much more difficult to make my way forward but I felt good on the bike. When I got to around P7 or P8 there were a couple of riders who upset the rhythm, and I was unlucky to get ran wide because we had a chance at the top five today. We’re still third in the championship, not so far from the leader, and there’s still a good amount of races to go.

Khairul Idham Pawi
24th (+24.967)

The start was okay but then someone nearly took me out and I lost my place in the group. Lap by lap I tried to improve the lap time and my rhythm to catch up with the group again. I was fighting with some riders, which meant the group could pull away. It was very difficult to make progress, so I just tried to keep pushing and put in some consistent laps, which I was able to do. It’s a pity that we couldn’t do better here, but we will now focus on Barcelona and see what happens there.