Britain’s Gino Rea bagged his first dry-weather Moto2 points at Motegi’s MotoGP round, finishing in 14th place and he said it was nice to be able to mix it with riders that have finished on the podium.

After showing good pace in free practice, brake and electrical problems caused havoc in qualifying so the young Londoner had to push through from 23rd on the grid and was sitting pretty in 13th until he was massed by Takaaki Nakagami in the closing stages.

“That was just the way I had hoped to finish off a hard weekend. I had a good pace here from Friday’s FP1 but with front brake and electrical problems I could only qualify 23rd. We got it fixed for the race and I was able to focus on passing riders in front of me to get up to 13th,” said Rea.

“I got onto the back of the group that led to 8th but I couldn’t make any more progress. I struggled a little in the last third of the race and Nakagami re-passed me. It’s nice to mix it with riders that have been on the podium this year and it shows our progress as a team. It’s taken a while but I’m glad to say I finished in the points in a dry race.”