Having shown podium pace throughout the weekend, fourth-year Moto2 rider Jake Dixon instead leaves Lusa🎶il♔ with a disappointing 11th place finish.

Dixon, who qualified in seventh position for Sunday’s Qatar Moto2 ra🅠ce, made a dreadful start as he dropped as far back as 22nd place. 

Dixon made a good but not great launch of the line, before finding himself with nowhere to go on the outside o🔯f turn one. On the dirty part of the track, Dixon then lost more places on the approach to turn 🔯two. 

While the Brit was able to regroup and make his way back through the pack, it’s a start to the season which without doubt fai𝓡led to meet expectations. 

"Turn 1 and 2 was a disaster! Being that far ౠback – outside the top twenty – on the first lap meant it was so hard to try and come back,𝕴" said Dixon. 

"I had to pass 10-11 riders and it took a long time. I think I lost 📖ten seconds and if you take that away from the final race time then we would have been battling for the podium. 

"So, we had the pace but the first lap held me back. It’s a🎃 long💃 season and this is just the start."

🍸As part of his comeback through to P11, Dixon had to overtake team-mate Albert Arenas, who himself had a dis🧸appointing first race. 

The Spaniard eventually finishe𓆉d in 13th spot which w𒀰as last of the four rookies from last season - Celestino Vietti won, Tony Arbolino was fifth and Ai Ogura sixth.  

Arenas added: "Goo🃏d to get the first race out of the way, even if I’m not totally happy with how it went because I was pretty on-the-limit. 

"We got some good information for the next cou🧸ple of races and will focus now on making a forward step and keep making laps to improve."