Tough Assen qualifying for John

Neither John McPhee nor teammate Alexis Masbou were able to exploit their and the package’s potential to qualify further to the front for tomorrow’s historic TT Assen in the Netherlands.

Once again the unpredictable weather in the northern part of the Netherlands played its role during today’s qualifying. After this morning’s FP3 took place in dry conditions but dark skies the timed session got underway still on a dry track before some rain drops at halfway stage made it difficult for riders and teams to evaluate the track’s conditions.

However, the track remained mostly dry to continue qualifying with slick tyres and dry settings. But due to the apparently rain drops almost all riders went out on track again at the same time for their final time attack. So for this reason there was a busy action out there which slowed both riders in Peugeot Motocycles SAXOPRINT in their attempt to better their lap times respectively during the final stages.

Whilst Alexis Masbou reported mixed feelings after qualifying, mainly a bit disappointed due to the circumstances but on the other sider happy about making steps forward in comparison to Friday’s free practice sessions, his team mate John McPhee endured once again bad luck due to technical problems. But also the young Scottish rider ran into traffic in his time attack.

For the very first time in history of the Dutch TT, the race will be held on Sunday with starting time for the Moto3 race scheduled at 11:00 am and a 22 laps distance at the truly awesome TT Circuit in Assen.

#17 John McPHEE, Grid position 21st – 1´43.515 (4/16):
“I’m so disappointed with my position after qualifying because mainly I know there is more potential. All the weekend I’ve been happy with the chassis and also about the feeling with the bike as well I felt confident with the track during all sessions. Step by step we made progress as the weekend went on but during this session I had some technical problems again. Due to this I wasted laps for many times. I know that I can go minimum half a second faster but I never managed to get a lap together. At the end when the rain come, there were many riders going slow so for this it was difficult to make a lap time too. I think, I’m just unhappy because there was more possible. But I feel strong for tomorrow’s race and I think with a good start I can make a good race.”

Source: Peugeot MC SAXOPRINT