Pole for McPhee as Pressure Mounts for Kent

Nov 7, 2015
2 min read

Scottish rider John McPhee claimed a second pole of the season as he surged to the front of the grid at Valencia.

McPhee had earlier in the day announced he would stay with his current Saxoprint RTG team in Moto3 for 2016 and celebrated in style with an impressive pole lap of 1m39.364s. McPhee did suffer a crash on his final lap and had to stand and wait to see if any rider would beat his time but they were unable to.

Romano Fenati sealed an equally superb second place on the grid with Efren Vazquez also impressing with a return to the front row in third. Miguel Oliveira stole the limelight in the title battle by qualifying in fourth place whilst championship leader could only manage a disappointing 18th place. Kent had initially looked to focus on race pace but this left him down the order when he fitted the softer tyres later on and with traffic he was unable to climb back up the order. A gearbox change error saw Kent hit the limiter too often on his qualifying laps which could prove crucial in a title fight that looked over in the middle of the season.

Jorge Navarro will start fifth and he initially was on provisionally pole but had his time deleted for exceeding track limits and in the end could only manage to claim middle of the second row. Enea Bastianini claimed sixth ahead of Niccolo Antonelli, Karel Hanika, Brad Binder and Hiroki Ono.

Qualifying was once again another close battle with the top 10 riders covered by just three tenths of a second whilst the leading 23 riders were less than a second away from McPhee's pole time. Wildcard Nicolo Bulega had imprssed throughout the weekend and even though he could only manage 16th in qualifying he was only six tenths from the front of the grid.

All eyes will be on the two title contenders with Kent down the field for the season finale, however, Moto3 has regularly seen drama and large battling groups of riders so anything is possible in tomorrow's deciding race. Kent's championship lead over Oliveira has been cut from 110 points after his win at Silverstone to just 24 points after not returning to the podium in the five races since. The qualifying result adds more pressure to Kent given his rival starts 4th but with Kent only needing to finish 14th it is up to Oliveira to ensure he wins to have any chance of stealing the crown from Kent.

Moto3 Valencia GP Qualifying Top 10:

POLE POSITION - John MCPHEE, 1m39.364s

2nd - Romano FENATI, +0.086s

3rd - Efren VAZQUEZ, +0.099s

4th - Miguel OLIVEIRA, +0.139s

5th - Jorge NAVARRO, +0.161s

6th - Enea BASTIANINI, +0.217s

7th - Niccolo ANTONELLI, +0.227s

8th - Karel HANIKA, +0.253s

9th - Brad BINDER, +0.302s

10th - Hiroki ONO, +0.304s

Full Qualifying results available here.