Front row start for John McPhee in the #FrenchGP at Le Mans

Although the Le Mans circuit was graced with sunshine, the cold temperatures created tricky conditions for the Moto3 riders. PETRONAS Sprinta Racing’s John McPhee battled back, after having his fastest lap deleted, to qualify third for the Grand Prix de France.

With bright sun and dry conditions, the times in FP3 were almost immediately quicker than those set yesterday. John bided his time and set the eighth fastest lap on his final run, 1min 42.662secs, which saw him through to Q2. Despite having his initial Q2 lap disallowed for a yellow flag infringement, John was able to finish the session third with a 1min 41.846secs lap, which will see him start from the front row tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s Moto3 Warm Up session will begin at 9am local time before the 22-lap race gets underway at 11.20am local time – slightly later than normal.

John McPhee
3rd (1’41.846)

We knew that qualifying on the front couple of rows was really important today, as it can be quite difficult to pass on this track. I’ve been trying to be as smooth as possible and keep the left hand side of the tyre as hot as possible. We changed our strategy a little bit today, to go as soon as the green light came on, but the yellow flags messed that up for us. It meant we were in the same boat as always and had to go at the end of the session. I was a little bit nervous as the slipstream can give you a big help here, but in the end I did my lap time alone and I’m really happy with the pace. I had a couple of on the edge moments at the end of qualifying, but managed to keep it together and I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow.