John McPhee (British Talent Team) was only allowed to get back into training towards the end of January in 2017, after the crash at Phillip Island that damaged his lung and forced the Brit to wait it out in Australia before being allowed to fly home. Despite that, McPhee was feeling confident and positive about the coming season after getting his first taste of the new British Talent Team as the first test of the year got down to business at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia.
John McPhee: “It’s been a positive two days with lots of laps, I did fifty plus laps both days and we’ve made some really good progress. We’ve managed to understand the bike a little bit, but the main focus for me was just to get back to riding again and see how the fitness was after such a long time off. And all of this has been really good, I feel strong, I feel happy with the bike and the team.”
Although only having trained for around two weeks, the Scottish rider was nevertheless happy with the pace – and surprised to have been on it so quickly.
JM17: “I’m really surprised because we’re there or thereabouts, we’re there with the laptime and my body is feeling good so I think the last couple of weeks training has managed to get me back into the swing of things. We’ll carry on with that and hopefully can be really strong come Qatar time. We’re right with the guys who have been on these bikes all last season and have been training fully over the winter so I think we can be happy. We’ll see how it goes in the next test!”