Petronas’ John McPhee narrowly missed out on a provisional Moto3 Q2 spot in Friday’s CatalanGP preparation after concluding FP2 15th overall.

Having utilised the opening day’s two 40-minute sessions as more of a test than an all-out time attack, the Scot worked on race pace and set up preparation while he adapted to the Montmeló circuit’s new layout.

“The new turn 10 flows really nicely and I think they’ve done a good job there” McPhee said from the Barcelona paddock this afternoon.

McPhee completed the morning practice fourth in the times with a fastest lap of 1’48.999 before continuing to focus on race preparations across the afternoon. Improving on his earlier time during Friday’s closing stages, his 1’48.968 lap left him 14th in the session standings but 15th overall, just 0.128s outside of the marker for conditional promotion.

“It’s never deliberate to be down the order but we did use today as a bit of a test and to try some things on the bike” the Scot explained.

“Our aim was to improve our race pace, more than the one-lap pace. We’ve found quite a lot so far that betters our one-lap, so we needed to focus on being able to attack in the race more.

“Today has been more about preparing for the race and then seeing what it gets us on a time attack. We’ve found some good information and I’m looking forward to putting it all together tomorrow, to see how we go in FP3.”