Due to a series of penalties inflicted on various grid drivers, John McPhee started the Qatar GP from fifth on the grid.

John eventually crossed the finish line with a good fifth place, being among the fastest on track. In fact his time of 2’05.623 turned out to be the second fastest time in the race. He spent the whole race in the leading group and only in the last laps he suffered a small gap from the top four. John closes the weekend positively, especially considering that it is his first race after the change of brand.

JOHN MCPHEE :

“The fifth position is a really solid way to start the year. I did not know how my setup was going to be across the race distance, as it is my first race with Husqvarna bike. We managed to compose ourselves really well in the race and would have been perfect if i could attack just a little bit more, but I was feeling a little bit on the limit with our package at the moment.

Overall I feel strong, we got good points for the championship and it was important to have these points to start the season in a good way.

So a huge thank you to the team, because they work so hard all the weekend to help me adapt more to the Husqvarna bike and to try to understand the way to ride this bike. For now I am really happy, we have some more progress that we can make and this is good because we keep on trying to make better.”