Petronas Sprinta’s Jake Dixon had a positive start to the Barcelona weekend, ending the day 14th in the overall standings and with a provisional qualification for Saturday’s Q2 shootout despite a challenging day at the Catalan track.

After showing consistent pace and running strongly within the top-10 for the majority of FP1, the Brit concluded his morning practice 11th, with a fastest time of 1’44.963, and hoping to continue the progress after making changes ahead of the afternoon’s run.

Unfortunately, strong winds and a turn 2 crash in the final 10 minutes of FP2 prevented Dixon from surpassing his afternoon best of 1’45.916, placing him 23rd in the demanding session but with his morning effort good enough for 14th overall he remains confident of the weekend ahead.

“FP1 was really good and I felt good on the bike. There were a few things we wanted to change between FP1 and FP2. We changed them, but it was a difficult session in the afternoon because of the wind,” said Dixon.

“The changes we made didn’t take us in the right direction, so we changed them to what we had before and went back out.

“Unfortunately I made a small error between Turn 1 and Turn 2 and I lost the front. Not an ideal situation but this is racing, we just need to limit the mistakes we make.

“Tomorrow I’m looking to continue what we’ve been doing and making it into Q2.”