Petronas SRT’s Jake Dixon prepared for the Algarve GP by firmly setting his sights on Q2, ending Friday at Portimao 14th overall.
A strong start to his returning Portuguese weekend saw Dixon fighting at the front with his 1’44.044 lap, placing him sixth in the morning’s FP1 and eager for more of the same in the afternoon.
His FP2 plan, however, didn’t quite go to plan, with the Brit falling down the standings and sitting outside Q2 contention until the final run. A change of tyre brought recovering pace and Dixon completed the day 14th overall with a best effort of 1’43.868 and confident of his speed on used rubber.
“FP1 was really good and I found the feeling straight away, so I was really happy with that,” Dixon commented on Friday evening.
“We planned on doing a long run this afternoon in FP2, so had a full fuel tank, hard tyre on the front and soft tyre on the rear, but four or five laps in I realised that we had an issue and it wasn’t going the way we wanted it to. I pulled in and we changed the rear for the one I used this morning, which I was able to go fast on. I was really happy with that, as it was a used tyre with 11 laps on, and my pace was good.”
