It was a frustrating day for Petronas Sprinta Racing’s John McPhee as technical issues prevented the British rider from progressing through to this afternoon’s Moto3 Q2 shootout.

The Scot will line up 20th on the grid for the junior class’ second consecutive race at Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

Suffering an issue to the rear of his number 17 machine throughout the morning’s final practice session, McPhee was knocked out of the automatic Q2 spots at the end of FP3 after his best time of 1’42.041 placed him 14th in the session but 15th overall.

Despite setting a strong 1’42.704 time alone on track towards the end of Q1, McPhee was denied entry to the pole shootout for the first time this season after a multitude of Moto3 riders slipstreamed their way up the times, leaving McPhee on row seven for tomorrow’s 23-lap race.

“It’s been a frustrating qualifying session today. In FP3 we had a problem with the rear of the bike, which meant I couldn’t take advantage of the fresh tyre," said McPhee.

"We managed to improve the race pace compared to last week though, but with the added headwind down the back straight it’s really important to use the slipstream.

“Although my rhythm feels quite good alone and I feel quite strong for most of the lap, with so many riders waiting around it was difficult to find a good position. I decided to go alone, as I didn’t want to risk a penalty, but my pace wasn’t enough.

“We’ve given ourselves a hard job to do tomorrow but the positive is all weekend we’ve been strong with the used tyre. I’m going to try and make my way forward like I did last week and see what happens.”