John McPhee mastered the tricky conditions in Le Mans to secure his first Moto3 pole position since Mugello 2017.

The Scot had to come through the tricky Q1 session and despite heavy cloud cover and cold conditions, it was clear the track was drying quickly and slick tyres were the tyres to be on. Leaving it late, McPhee topped the Q1 session with a 1:43.994.

Fellow Q1 graduate Marcos Ramirez was using the knowledge from his additional fifteen-minute session to be the early leader in Q2, before Tony Arbolino started to drop the lap times with the Q2 men finding their feet.

With lap times dropping, it was McPhee who built up to his fastest lap before timing his lap to perfection to nail his lap perfectly with a little over a minute remaining, putting him fastest with a 1:42.277.

McPhee will be joined on the front row by Arbolino who ended just under two tenths behind and by Ai Ogura with the Japanese rider securing his first front row start in the Moto3 World Championship.

Tatsuki Suzuki will head off the second row, with Gabi Rodrigo and Ramirez completing the second row. Jerez race winner Nico Antonelli had to brush off his third crash of the weekend and will start from seventh place with Kaito Toba and Andrea Migno joining the Italian on the third row.

Both Augusto Fernandez (eighth) and Sergio Garcia (tenth) qualified in the top ten, although both were handed down grid penalties from slow riding in free practice, which sees them start down in 20th and 22nd respectively.