The weekend started strongly for the 21-year old as he posted the second fastest time in Friday’s opening free practice session but a heavy, high-speed crash at Hawthorn later that afternoon put both rider and team on the back foot. With the Kawasaki ZX-10R rebuilt for Saturday, Jake posted the eighth fastest time in qualifying to line up in the middle of the third row for that afternoon’s race.
However, his race was only three laps old when he crashed out at Clearways, after water leaked from another rider’s machine caused no less than five riders, including Jake, to go down. With considerable damage to the bike once more and a quick restart, there wasn’t time for the team to make the necessary repairs and the 21-year old was a reluctant non-starter.
As a result, he was forced to start Sunday’s first 20-lap race from 22nd on the grid and although he managed to work his way up to 16th, he was forced to retire from the race just after half distance. That just left one race to go with the Ashby resident lining up on this occasion in 14th and in the middle of the fifth row.
He held station in 14th for the first five laps before jumping up to 11th on lap six and it looked like this was would be where he finished his 2017 season but former World Superbike Champion Sylvain Guintoli got the better of him in the closing stages to leave him in 12th place at the chequered flag.
Nevertheless, he finished the season, his first full year in the BSB class, in an excellent sixth place overall, the undoubted highlights being his double victory at Knockhill and further podiums at Thruxton, Cadwell Park and Silverstone.
Speaking after the final round of the season Jake Dixon: “From a weekend that started so brightly, it’s turned out to be the opposite and not how I wanted to end the season at all! Everything was looking really good on Friday when I was second quickest in FP1 and running in the same position in FP2 up until I crashed.”
“It wrecked the bike and left me feeling very sore and from that moment on it was a rollercoaster ride. The team did a great job, as they have all year, in preparing the bike for qualifying and the first race but I was down before I knew it again when Dan’s bike spilled water onto the track.”
“The bike took another beating and nothing was going right for us but we regrouped for Sunday only for a vibration in the first race to hold me back. It wasn’t ideal but the boys did everything to get me back out and although I got a finish of 12th in the final race of the year, I wasn’t able to show what I could do so it’s a real shame our year ended in this fashion.”
“Like I say, it’s not the way we wanted to end our season but we’ve shown what we can do this year and we’re going to come back in 2018 and firmly challenge for the title.”
Pictures supplied by PSP Images.