Jake Dixon made the best of a difficult situation with his Petronas Moto2 at Barcelona this afternoon after starting from 32nd on the CatalanGP grid.

Having lost out on qualifying thanks to a Q1 crash, the Brit got his head down on the opening lap of Sunday’s contest, immediately taking four places and continuing to progress through the pack to sit 22nd by the midpoint of the 22-lap race. With further improvement hampered as the mid-pack spread out, Dixon continued to battle in the closing stages, crossing the line in 18th and disappointed to miss out on a points scoring finish. The hard day made even more bittersweet as his teammate Xavi Vierge collected the squad’s debut Moto2 podium, after fighting to third. 

“It was never going to be ideal starting from where we were and we knew it would be a difficult race.” Dixon explained honestly.

“We are still suffering with some issues, which we will need to look into. We have a small break before the next two races so hopefully we can find something between now and Germany. 

"This isn’t where I want to be finishing, especially when we know that we can do better. We just need to look to Sachsenring and try to change some things to try and improve.”

“Unfortunately it was another struggle for Jake and this wasn’t what we were hoping for,” Petronas Team Director, Johan Stigefelt said after the race. 

“We have some things to work on and we need to figure out how to improve his feeling on the bike. It’s good that we can use Xavi’s data and learn from it to hopefully help Jake ahead of the next race in Germany.”