John McPhee put in another skilled performance at MotorLand Aragón this afternoon, scything through the Moto3 pack with his Petronas SRT to end the frenzied race a hard-fought sixth, from 17th on the grid.

Immediately moving into 13th after a good start, McPhee entered the top-10 by the end of the opening lap. Working his way towards the front of the leading pack, the Scot was running seventh until a near-highside at the halfway point dropped him back to 12th, forcing the Petronas rider to regroup.

Increasing the pace in the later-stages the number 17 moved firmly into podium contention with four laps to go, running consistently in third before he was unfortunately sent wide on the final lap and forced to settle for sixth as he crossed the line. His 119 points-tally now finds McPhee sixth in the riders’ standings, 38 adrift of leader Albert Arenas with three races remaining.

“I was really happy to be able to move forward, we knew starting from 17th that it was always going to be difficult," said McPhee.

“I had a good start, was able to make it towards the front quite quickly. I then had a big moment in the last corner and had to do all the work over again, because I dropped down to around 12th again.

“To be able to recover to P2 and be in the top-three for the last five laps was really nice. I was a little bit unlucky on the final lap, getting passed aggressively a few times and then pushed wide, which dropped me to P6. I dug deep on the last lap but wasn’t able to recover these positions with only a few corners to go.

“The good thing is that we were strong all race and had the same pace as the winner. We’ll look to continue this form at the final three races.”