This weekend’s British Grand Prix marks something of a baptism of fire for home hero Jake Dixon, as he’s promoted from the Moto2 class into MotoGP for a one-off appearance in front of the Silverstone crowd.
Deputising for his injured premier class Petronas team-mate Franco Morbidelli is a big ask for the 25-year-old rookie – and what exactly will be possible for Dixon is a big question.
A MotoGP debut is a challenge at the best of times and this one’s been made even tougher by the circumstances of Dixon’s rapid promotion from the Petronas team’s Moto2 bike.
The first time he’ll ride a MotoGP bike in anger will be when he rolls out of pitlane for free practice one on Friday morning. He’s certainly in at the deep end.
And really, with that in mind, his target on Sunday should be a simple one: finishing the race.
There’s not much else to be gained from going for glory against what may well be the tightest grand prix grid in history. In a field regularly separated by a second, there’s no shame in being towards the back when it’s your very first time riding a MotoGP bike.
And the reality is that towards the back is exactly where Dixon is likely to spend most of the weekend. We can use Garrett Gerloff as something of a reference there, given that he has already jumped onto Morbidelli’s bike this season to make his own MotoGP race debut, and even did it at a track very similar to Silverstone in the shape of Assen. He’d had the slight advantage of one Yamaha MotoGP outing in practice in 2020 when it looked like he might need to stand in for Valentino Rossi at Valencia.
Last or second last in all but one session throughout the weekend as he learned not just the bike but the track, Gerloff still managed to end the Sunday race in 17th, one place ahead of Luca Marini. Yet the American was still nearly a minute off race winner Fabio Quartararo at the chequered flag, and 16 seconds from Lorenzo Savadori in 16th.
Things aren’t aided by Dixon having something of a tough time in Moto2. Having broken his wrist badly at the end of the 2020 season and struggled to recover from the major injury over the winter, his form was exacerbated by tensions within the team that were aided only by a switch of crew chief prior to the summer break.
Dixon does have one advantage this weekend that Gerloff didn’t, though – he has experience of the track on a large capacity bike thanks to his time in the British Superbike championship, where he finished runner-up to Leon Haslam in 2018 (pictured above).
A podium finisher in 2017 on the full-length Silverstone GP circuit as well as again in 2018 on the shorter National track, Dixon knows his way around the Northamptonshire venue, and brings a riding style that’s more suited to a more powerful bike than the Moto2 machines he’s been on since arriving in the Grand Prix paddock in 2019.
But with two seasons since then on those Moto2 machines, it might be that his previous superbike experience isn’t much help – or at least that’s the opinion of someone who knows both MotoGP and Dixon very well.
Six-time British Superbike champion Shane Byrne, who previously mentored and managed Dixon in his younger days, says that the way in which MotoGP bikes compare to superbikes and even Moto2 means that it’s going to require learning a whole new riding style.
“Having big bike experience around there won’t make one bit of experience,” Byrne – pictured above racing Dixon in BSB in 2017 – told The Race, “because the bike he’s already riding around there in Moto2 already has a lap time comparable to a superbike!
“I remember when we raced there quite a few years ago as a support race, the lap times were very similar, which I found incredible.
“I stood and watched at Copse and they just wanted to make a load of racket but not go anywhere – but the corner speed was incredible!
“When you see them making all this noise but not actually going forward I remember thinking ‘how on earth are they going as quick as we are?’ But obviously they’re the best riders in the world.”
And while it looks like there’s no chance now of gaining a MotoGP seat from the experience for Dixon given the team’s moves to secure Andrea Dovizioso alongside Darryn Binder for 2022, former Aprilia MotoGP rider Byrne says that any rider who turned down such an opportunity would be crazy.
“I feel for him, because in some ways he’s on a little bit of a hiding to nothing because the rides are pretty much sorted for next year and it’s not like anything he does on that bike will catapult him into a factory MotoGP ride,” said Byrne, pictured below during his own MotoGP stint in 2004.
“But at the same time who wouldn’t take the opportunity to be Valentino Rossi’s team-mate for a weekend?
“I don’t think that he’s going to jump on a completely different bike, one unlike anything he’s ever ridden before, on completely new tyres, and be there.
“But it’s an opportunity that he’d be mad to turn down – I’m not even allowed to race anymore and I’d come out of retirement to jump on it if they asked me!
“Oh my God – to be in Valentino’s garage? I’d suggest he takes as many selfies as he possibly can and just laps it all up – and who knows, maybe in a season or two when he finds the old Jake again he’ll get his shot.”
