Moto3 Qatar Test Results: John McPhee finishes Day 2 on top
John McPhee follows in his teammate’s footsteps, finishing day 2 in P1 overall.
John McPhee is one of Moto3’s oldest riders, the Scottish veteran is turning 27 this year as he lines up for his 12th season in the lightweight class, from this you can gather that this man knows his way around Qatar, proving this point today taking P1 overall by a huge 0.309 to Dennis Foggia in P2. McPhee’s time of 2’05.286 on Day 2 was 0.490 faster than yesterday’s time which was enough for P2 behind teammate Binder. The wee John McPhee struck back on Day 2 lapping over a second quicker than his teammate.
Dennis Foggia sits in second place for the day today, he remains with the Leopard team for 2021 and will ride alongside his new rookie teammate Xavier Artigas who already has a podium in the class under his belt. Andrea Migno is another seasoned rider in the Moto3 class, the Italian as exclusively raced for KTM since 2015 and has 1 win and 6 podiums to his name, he decided he wanted a change for 2021 and has moved to the Honda chassis in hope that this is his ticket to consistency, so far this is proving to be correct with the Italian running at the front during many of the test sessions finishing in P3 today 0.406 behind McPhee.
The 2020 Red Bull Rookies champion Pedro Acosta is no stranger to going fast around a race track and hasn’t taken long to adapt to his Red Bull KTM Ajo machine, the 16-year-old Spaniard finishing up the day in P4 ahead of some incredibly strong names, Acosta won 6 consecutive races in the rookies last season and even battled for the 2020 FIM Moto3 Junior World Championship title alongside Xavier Artigas and Izan Guevara.
Filip Salac is today’s P5 man, the rider is looking to pick up his speed as he enters his third season in the class, the talented youngster finishing 0.764 from P1 ahead of 2019 Red Bull Rookies Champion Carlos Tatay in P6. Jeremy Alcoba is another hotshot looking to strike this season in Moto3, the 2020 Moto3 rookie of the year outclassed his teammate Gabriel Rodrigo in 2020 and aims to do it again this year taking P7 in the session ahead of Jaume Masia in P8.
Masia running his new Red Bull KTM Ajo colours.
Masia has moved back to KTM chassis riding for the Red Bull KTM Ajo Team after an impressive season with the Leopard team in 2020, he was replaced in the Leopard squad due to Artigas already having an existing contract with the team which was signed in 2019.
Romano Fenati and Izan Guevara rounded off the top 10 with Guevara in P10 being the last rider within 1 second of McPhee in P1. Gas Gas Aspar rider Izan Guevara holds a lot of promise heading into this year, he was a back to back European Talent Cup and FIM Moto3 Junior World Champion winning the titles as a rookie, the 16-year-old Spanish rider was able to lead session 2 today before the times sped up dramatically in session 3.
Further down the field we see Sergio Garcia in P11 behind teammate Guevara with Ayumu Sasaki and Darryn Binder placing in P12 and P13, Binder moving to the Honda Moto3 bike for 2021 with the Petronas Team. Niccolo Antonelli also made a switch from Honda to KTM and leads rookie Xavier Artigas in P15.
Looking at the class rookies Lorenzo Fellon (son of Laurent) finishes in P19 making a big step up from yesterdays P26, further down in P25 is a 23-year-old rookie Andi Farid Izdihar with Adrian Fernandez in P27 at the back of the field.
Full Results:
Featured image – Petronas SRT
Red Bull KTM Ajo
