Dixon: You live and you learn

Jake Dixon was philosophical when assessing his second race as a Moto2 rider, an outing he described as “not great”, admitting a set-up change ahead of the Grand Prix of Argentina didn’t pay off.

The British Superbike runner up finished 17th, 41s back of race winner Lorenzo Baldassarri as he continued his adaption from Superbike to grand prix machinery.

“That was not great,” Dixon said. “We used it as a test session, but we went the wrong way. You live and you learn at the end of the day. I can’t blame anybody. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. We tried something and it didn’t work.

“One place we’ve been strong all weekend is braking and in that race I couldn’t brake for anything. So it wasn’t ideal. I just felt really, really uncomfortable the whole race.”

It has been a chastening start for KTM in this season’s Moto2 category. Brad Binder was the first Austrian chassis home in twelfth at the first round of the season.

And aside from Iker Lecuona (fourth) and Binder’s (sixth) showings in Argentina, it was another difficult day for the Austrian brand, with its bikes coming home 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st and 22nd.

Binder had a new swingarm to sample in Argentina, but Dixon has had to make do with the same chassis he has used since the first winter tests. He has received no word regarding if and when and updates will arrive.

Focussing on Argentina, the Englishman admitted he still needs to think a good deal about his riding position on the bike, things that are not yet natural to him.

“We need to sit down and figure out what happened and try and move forward and try to keep improving,” he said.

“I’m not riding that well because I’m thinking about so many different things that they keep telling me to do. I use the rear brake, or tuck in more, or you need to hang off more.

“So I’ve got a lot going on still to learn this bike and the way that this is, because I come from superbike that you never really tuck in.

“I’ve always ridden road bikes, so this is just a completely different field to what I’m used to. But I know in time, I’ll eventually be able to be up front at this championship. But we got to keep working first.

“Actually at the corner, that’s where I lose all my time. I put two and two together. You’re not braking well and now you can’t get out of the corner either. It was a disaster. It is what it is. We move on now and try and move forward.”