Petronas Sprinta’s Jake Dixon ended a frustrating Saturday in Portimao 20th after a mid-session crash in Moto2 qualifying.

Dixon failed to secure passage into Q2 directly from the morning’s final practice after his fastest 1’43.246 lap on FP3 sat him 17th overall, despite finding strong pace throughout Friday.

While qualifying allowed some progression, the Brit remained mid-table for the majority of the 15-minute session before a turn five crash denied him a second run. His final 1’43.545 lap left him sixth in Q1 and facing a 20th place start from the seventh row for Sunday’s 23-lap race.

“It seems like every Friday is good for me while every Saturday is difficult at the minute, so I’d like to swap it around,” Dixon admitted. “Yesterday I felt good on the bike, but I felt like we needed to improve and unfortunately I wasn’t able to do that today.

“We seemed to be stagnant in our progress, while others improved and the problems seem to be highlighted on the soft tyre. Unfortunately I crashed in qualifying, but I think even without that I wouldn’t have gone through. I’ve struggled but we’ll put our heads together tonight to make a plan for tomorrow.

“My race pace is better but we still need to make an improvement there as well. I’m planning to be aggressive in the opening laps, because if I can gain positions early on then I could have a good race.”