PETRONAS Sprinta Racing ready for resumption of Moto3.

PETRONAS Sprinta Racing and riders John McPhee and Khairul Idham Pawi are keenly anticipating the upcoming second round of the 2020 Moto3 season in Spain this weekend at Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto, nearly four months after the season-opening Qatar GP.

McPhee is eager to pick up where he left off in the Moto3 championship, after the first round saw the Scot finish second, only 0.053 seconds shy of the win. Team-mate KIP will be looking to continue the improvements made during the pre-season tests and during the Qatar GP.

The pairing face an extraordinary season, rudely interrupted by an enforced break since Qatar. This Wednesday sees the duo take to the track to test, reuniting the riders with their Honda NSF250RW bikes for the first time since the season-opener. This weekend’s race is the first of 13 across the next 18 weeks, with the paddock set to look very different, devoid of fans and with minimal support crew in attendance.

The Moto3 category will enjoy being the first riders back on track, with their first session of the one-day test on Wednesday starting at 09:00 CEST/15:00 MYT. Their Saturday qualifying sessions will begin at 12:35 CEST/18:35 MYT before their second race of the year begins at 11:00 CEST/17:00 MYT on Sunday.

John McPhee.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more prepared for a race! I’ve had since Qatar to prepare and look forward to the weekend in Jerez finally arriving. I think it will be a challenge jumping back into a race, just because it’s been so long for everyone. However, I feel we can look forward to a really exciting weekend ahead because we had a great feeling with the bike at the Jerez test, I’m very familiar with the bike and I have such a great crew. Over the last four months, I’ve mainly focused on my fitness as we’ve not been able to ride any motorbikes for a lot of it. I actually feel at my best physically and I’m probably in the best shape I’ve ever been in! In this past week I’ve also been able to confirm that I still know how to ride a bike too!

Khairul Idham Pawi.

It’s great to be going back racing again after staying home for such a long time. I’m happy with the training I’ve been doing during this period and it’s been great to be riding bikes again, although I can’t wait to jump on my race bike again at the test. I think it’s going to be a little difficult for everyone to get used to riding and the race weekends again but I’m confident that we can improve on what we were doing in Qatar. It’s going to be important to work hard in the test to make sure we’re at our best for the race. For sure it will be challenging, but now I’m hungry to get back racing and have some fun on the bike again.