John McPhee was denied another strong finish on his Petronas Moto3 on Sunday after once again being forced to take evasive action during the GermanGP.
A good start from fourth on the grid saw McPhee climb two places by the second lap. Remaining in the podium fight throughout the opening laps he maintained his grip firmly within the leading group as the race unfolded - the intensely close battle seeing one-second cover the entire top-17 for the first half of the contest.
Unfortunately, the Scot was forced to take avoiding action as two riders crashed in front of him on lap 13, running him wide as he dropped to 16th and resulting in a prominent gap to bridge. Quick to recover, McPhee soon found himself in 11th but was ultimately unable to close the gap to Izan Guevara ahead, crossing the line less than a second shy of the top-10.
“It has been a solid weekend overall and I’ve been fast throughout, including being quickest on day one and then fourth on day two,” McPhee said as he focused on the positives.
“We’ve been able to show that the speed and consistency are there, we were just unlucky to get caught up in another rider’s crash in the race and had to take to the grass to avoid it.
“We lost a lot of time and I was unable to claw it back by the end of the race. I had to settle for P11, that was the most we could do today, but we can take the positives away with us.
“I’m looking forward to Assen, where I hope we can turn our race day fortunes around,” he concluded.
McPhee’s potential was backed up by his team, as SRT director, Johan Stigefelt added:
“John had a good starting position today and he felt very strong coming into this race. He rode very well in the beginning, but then got pushed out wide in a couple of corners. Then it happened again when he had to avoid a crash in front. He lost three and a half seconds to the group, so it was impossible to catch them.”