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Moto3 Sachsenring
McPhee hails "strong" Sachsenring pace
Peugeot's John McPhee hailed the strong show by the Mahindra at the Sachsenring Moto3 weekend.
Darshan Chokhani
Edited: Nov 29, 2016, 10:10 AM
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The Racing Steps Foundation rider claimed his season's best result of sixth place in a wet race at the German circuit+, having started the race from eighth.
"I think that an even better result was possible today, but we need to take the positives out of the weekend," the British rider said after the race.
"We’ve been really strong in all sessions and finished the weekend with a nice handful of points on the table," he added.
After a mixed 2016 season, McPhee believes the team can carry this weekend's success into the second half. "We’re moving in the right direction, we’ve made a step with the bike.
"And can now go into the summer break more confident, train hard and focus on coming back stronger in the second half of the season."
In the mixed conditions at Sachsenring, McPhee found himself leading the race at one point before he dropped to eighth but gained two places to sixth, in the end.
"A lot of my racing when I first started was in the rain, but it isn’t something I’ve had a lot of experience with in the last few years.
"Today was the first time riding the MGP3O in the wet, but we’ve been fast all weekend so I think we would have had the pace to compete no matter what conditions."
Bagnaia leads Aspar charge
Francesco Bagnaia finished a modest 10th but scored valuable points to keep fourth position in the championship standings.
The VR46 rider said he rode cautiously in the tricky conditions at Sachsenring, not taking too many risks on his way to a top 10 finish.
"It was a game of elimination and I tried not to take too many risks in search of more points. At the start I did not want to take any chances, so I started fairly slowly and gradually recovered positions," he said.
"Halfway through the race, the tyres were not quite right, which slowed me down a bit. I could have fallen several times during the race.
"But on the last four laps I was able to ride more strongly and I managed to warm the tyres up. If I hadn’t dropped off the pace mid-race, I could have finished up there with [Jorge] Navarro and [Brad] Binder," the Italian added.
Teammate Jorge Martin was running strongly in points before crashing out, but was happy with the pace after his return from injury.
Suzuki scores more points
CIP's Tatsuki Suzuki had a strong race finishing 11th, registering his season's best result while teammate Fabio Spiranelli did not start the race.
McPhee's teammate Alexis Masbou missed on points finishing 16th with Team Italia's Stefano Valtulini ending 20th and the last Mahindra rider Danny Webb (Platinum Bay) was 22nd.
Joining Martin in the retirement list were Platinum Bay's Darryn Binder and Team Italia's Lorenzo Petrarca.
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