Petronas Sprinta’s John McPhee had to battle back from a rough first lap in the opening Moto3 race of the season and was hampered by a lack of top-end on his Honda.
McPhee finished the opening lap in 20th place from a second-row grid slot after running wide and making a couple of errors but got his head down and clawed back to a points-scoring 13th after getting into the lead pack.
“My bike felt great in the race, the team have done a great job on finding my race pace and I knew it was going to be good. Unfortunately, we had a small technical problem with the top speed, which cost us particularly on the straight, but the bike was good around the rest of the track,” said the Scotsman.
“I made a couple of mistakes on the first lap, ran wide in one corner, and when you do that at the beginning it costs you for the whole race.
“After that I focused on setting my pace, which was good, and tried to catch the lead group, which I managed even though I was stuck at the back.
“The good thing about the weekend is I felt strong, my pace and feeling were good and the speed is there. We have limited the damage by picking up some points and now we can turn our focus to the next GP in Argentina.”
