Moto3: McPhee strong at bad track in Austin

John McPhee has come away from the third round of the 2017 Moto3 championship last weekend pleased with his seventh place finish in America, even if the result doesn’t quite live up to the high standards he’s already set himself this season after taking a brace of second place finishes in the opening two races.

Always knowing that this weekend would be perhaps the toughest on the calendar for him and his British Talent Team Honda, the Czech Grand Prix winner might have been disappointed after the battle, but was still able to find the positives in it.

“It could have been worse, and after the way the weekend panned out it could have been a very difficult one for us. Austin is probably the most difficult track for us on the calendar, so to finish seventh and only five seconds off the win is not so bad, and we can look forward from here knowing we can be strong at every single other track.

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“I know that there are tracks where we can even absolutely dominate, and we can be happier with more points on the table and being in front of Joan Mir, closing down that gap even more. If we can be in the top seven in the worst weekend of the year, we can look forward to the rest of the year positively.”

And while McPhee was positive after the race, his British Talent Team coach was even happier, with former Grand Prix winner Jeremy McWilliams echoing what his rider said about their potential for the remainder of 2017.

“We could see from early on that it wasn’t John’s favourite place in the world and we discussed damage limitation. If we could have come away with some decent points that was all we needed to do, and he carried that out perfectly.

“He was able to fight at the front even after having a bit of a lack of confidence all weekend, and that’s been the biggest positive from the race. He put it all together for the race, which is what counts!”

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