Jake Dixon secured top 14 status in Catalunya on Friday despite his obvious frustrations with the progress made aboard his Petronas Moto2 machine.
A challenging FP1 saw the Brit circulating the adapted Montmeló layout in the second half of the standings for the majority of the morning’s 40-minute session before a late reprieve, and a 1’44.361 lap, boosted him to ninth, just 0.005secs behind his teammate, Xavi Vierge.
“It’s been a difficult day,” Dixon explained.
“This morning I felt on the limit to even make the lap time that I did. I thought that this afternoon we would be able to make a little bit of a step forward but unfortunately I think we went in the wrong direction. We need to analyse tonight exactly what we need to do for tomorrow.”
In an afternoon that saw the top-20 riders separated by less than one-second, the Petronas rider failed to improve on the morning’s best lap - securing a 1’44.489 to place him 12th in FP2. With his earlier effort keeping him in contention for Q2 with 13th overall, the 25-year-old remains unsatisfied and determined to “come out fighting.
“Of course I’m hoping and wanting to be in a better position than where we are right now, our aim is to be making our way more towards the front. Anything is possible though, so we’ll keep working away and hopefully we can make that improvement tomorrow” he concluded.
