Although the Spanish sun was out at MotorLand Aragón for Saturday’s Moto3 qualifying sessions, it proved to be a difficult day for PETRONAS Sprinta Racing. Although John McPhee made it through to Q2, despite a crash, he will start the Gran Premio de Teruel 17th.

It was a fraught final few minutes of FP3 for John, who had it all to do after a Turn 8 crash early on in the session. The Scot was able to squeeze through to Q2 at the last moment, after setting a 1min 58.105secs lap. Although in Q2 John was able to set some good laps alone, without the slipstream, the fast pace of the session meant that his 1min 58.328secs lap saw him end qualifying in 17th place.

Tomorrow’s Moto3 action will kick off with Warm Up at 9.20am local time with the 19-lap race getting underway at 11.20am local time.

John McPhee -  17th (1’58.328)

Q2 was a tough session today. I did my laps alone, without a slipstream, and they were okay. It was just a really fast qualifying session today and those laps weren’t enough. We’ve treated all the sessions this weekend like a bit of a test, to play with the settings on the bike, and until now I’ve been riding something that feels quite different. There is some potential there but trying to get the optimum out of those settings over one lap proved to be difficult. We’ll make a decision about what to do for the race tomorrow. We know from last weekend that my race pace is good and it might be tricky starting from P17, but we know we have the speed to come through the pack.