Jake Dixon started his second weekend in MotoGP in confident form, consistently improving his lap-time with the Petronas Yamaha around MotorLand Aragón.

Standing in once again for Franky Morbidelli, as the Italian continues his knee rehabilitation, Dixon made good progress across Friday’s two 45-minutes of track action. Reducing his lap-time by over a second, the Brit’s best effort of 1’49.987 ended the day 2.3 seconds from Jack Miller’s overall fastest despite remaining on used tyres and opting not to push for a time attack.

“It’s really good to experience being in MotoGP for a second time,” Dixon stated after FP2. “The speed of the bike wasn’t such a shock this time and it was really enjoyable.

“It’s great to ride in Aragon. The first session, I would say, was tricky for me to just find the references to the Moto2 bike, was slightly different but come FP2 I felt like I had found a good way. I found a good base with the bike and up until the time attacks at the end - we didn't put a new tyre, we stuck with the medium/hard throughout the whole session - I think we were only 1.4  off the top so I feel really, really good.

“Looking forward to trying a time attack tomorrow to see what we can do because it seems to be that the soft tyre's giving a lot more lap-time.

“I felt good [after Silverstone]. I'd actually say the bike is a little bit more easy to ride than the Moto2 bike, just from a point of view that it's bigger. The way the Moto2, where I'm quite tall, is difficult to tuck in, so when you're having to make sure you're fully, fully tucked in everywhere it becomes quite physical and stressful. So for me [the MotoGP] actually was not so physical, and it's pretty good.

“I would say I'm struggling on just the select few areas and few corners to Fabio [Quartararo]. What we can see on data is when he was on the same tyres, on the same laps on the tyres, on my best lap to his best lap, it was less than one-second. There's a few areas that I need to definitely improve on, but he's able to do them consistently, where I'm able to do them for one lap and then I make a few mistakes in them areas, because obviously still I'm not familiar and comfortable. I do still need to improve, but it's all going in the right direction and I'm really enjoying it.

“The team want to see steps, they want to see you build throughout the weekend, so how I start to how I finish is obviously the main aim. I feel from FP1 to FP2 we made a really big step, and I feel like from tomorrow when I try the soft tyre, I think the timesheets will show that I will be a lot closer to the front guys. I think you have to be wise, you have to be smart, everything has to take time, you cannot rush these things. At the end of the day, me pushing and putting myself up the road in FP1 and FP2 and making an impression in that way is not going to help.

“These bikes are 300 horsepower bikes that don't go easily around the track and they bite. So if you do something wrong and you don't treat them with respect, it's going to bite you in the wrong direction and it's not going to be good. So you need to take your time, you need to build and you need to learn as fast as you possibly can but when the time comes and the right time is there to push, I will push to my absolute maximum!

“They're both so similar, they're both so long,” Dixon said when comparing Silverstone to the MotorLand layout. “They're not short tracks, so to be not far away from the top! If you go into Sachsenring I would be less than one-second, I'd probably be within eight-tenths of the front guys but because it's such long tracks, the gaps are obviously exaggerated, because there's many corners to make so many mistakes, and to understand.

“Obviously, Silverstone was super hard for me on the Friday because I was learning the whole bike, but come here for the Friday, I didn't have to learn the speed, it was just a matter of going out and still learning what I already know, to develop on that.”