After wet weather affected Saturday’s free practice sessions, Easter Sunday dawned dry but with very cold temperatures and a fall early in the final practice session at Starkey’s put Jake and the team on the back foot with qualifying taking place immediately afterwards.

Nevertheless, the team did a superb job to get him back out on track and despite missing the majority of the session, the 22-year old qualified in 11th place for the first race of the season which was held later in the afternoon.

A slightly sluggish opening lap, later traced to a problem with the clutch, left him down in 17th place and with plenty of work to do but by lap four he was running inside the points having moved up to 14th. Race conditions were again far from ideal but the Dover born rider continued to chip away throughout the 18-lap race and was rewarded for his efforts with 11th at the chequered flag and five hard-earned points.

It meant he started Easter Monday’s race in tenth place and in the middle of the fourth grid where he was eager to improve upon the previous day’s result. Heavy rain looked like the race may fall foul to the weather but the track was drying when the race got underway and by half race distance, Jake had moved forward well and was lying in sixth position.

However, trying hard to close in on the battle for fourth, he made a slight mistake and ran straight on at the Melbourne Loop and with only a handful of laps to go, he could only claim 12th at the chequered flag although the nine points from the two races could prove to be valuable come season’s end.

Speaking after the weekend, Dixon said: “Both of the results stemmed from the tip-off I had at Starkey’s in the third free practice session on Sunday morning and with only three laps in qualifying, I was playing catch-up from that moment on.”

“I had a clutch issue in the first race which left me with no engine braking and back in 12th place whilst Monday was looking a lot better when I’d moved up into sixth place.”

“It was difficult overtaking as it meant you had to go off line to do it and I ended up running straight on at the Melbourne Loop whilst chasing Danny Buchan and Shane Byrne.”

“I got back up to 12th so whilst nine points from the two races is far from ideal, I’m in one piece and we can go again at Brands.”