John McPhee lines up 15th for his final race with the Petronas SRT squad as 2021 concludes at Valencia.

McPhee secured direct entry to the last pole shootout of the year after completing Saturday morning’s FP3 11th. His 1’39.904 lap placing him 13th overall and bypassing the opening 15-minute battle.

Improving his pace in Q2 while still suffering with speed issues that impacted the previous round, the Scot recorded a 1’39.666, heading off teammate Darryn Binder for the final time to close out the fifth row.
 
“It hasn’t been the easiest of weekends for us,” McPhee admitted on Saturday. “We found a lap time in FP1 and since then we haven’t really been able to go too much faster.

“We’ve made quite a lot of changes but it feels like we haven’t made that much progress. Unfortunately the issues and disadvantage that we had with the straight line speed at Portimão have continued here. It’s been tough to make a step forward, so we’re working hard as a team to try to improve in any way we can.

“It won’t be an easy race, as we are starting from 15th on the grid, but we’ll give 100% and try to finish the season in the best way possible.”