Petronas Sprinta Racing’s John McPhee will start the San MarinoGP 19th after two Saturday crashes curtailed his qualifying progress at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

McPhee was the early pacesetter as Q1 fired up, thanks to a 1’43.351 lap, but his session ended before it had really begun after a turn nine crash on his third lap of the afternoon. A morning crash one corner earlier having sent him into the opening qualifying session after he was prevented from capitalising on his previous top 10 pace in FP3.

The Scot ended Q1 fifth, just 0.067secs shy of a Q2 place, and will start tomorrow’s race from the seventh row.

“It’s not been our day and, as we’ve seen, the track conditions have caught out a lot of riders today,” McPhee said on his difficult day. “Unfortunately I was one of them; I lost the front in my fastest lap of FP3, which meant we had to go through to Q1, and then I lost the front again in my second lap of qualifying.

“It’s a pity because we have to start from 19th, which means the race won’t be easy. I’m feeling fast on the bike, I just suffered misfortune twice. We’ll work hard tomorrow to try to make our forward and it should be a group battle, so we’ll see what’s possible.

“Last year we struggled all weekend but turned it around in the race, so it will be fantastic if I can do that again tomorrow.”