Jake Dixon had a comfortable career in front of him in 2017. Having stepped up to the British Superbike Championship in 2016 for a part-campaign that was interrupted by a broken hip following a brake failure at Oulton Park, he bounced back with his first race wins in 2017. The youngest ever rider to make BSB’s old showdown championship-deciding format, in 2018 he was runner-up in the standings.
Money was coming in, trophies were piling up. Dixon likely would be a multiple BSB champion by now, perhaps trying his luck in World Superbikes. But in 2019, he chucked that all in to chase his MotoGP dream and joined the Aspar squad in Moto2.
It was a disaster. Dixon scored just seven points on the uncompetitive KTM chassis before jumping ship to Petronas SRT on a Kalex chassis – a move that proved to be “the biggest shower of shit”, as Dixon candidly tells Autosport at Silverstone.
“I started at 14 years old and most kids start at four years old,” begins Dixon when speaking about how difficult his time in grand prix racing has been. “So, I’m 10 years behind immediately. They all start on grand prix bikes and I start on road bikes in BSB. So, it’s a completely different route. By the time I get to GP, I’m 23 and that’s already late.
“To come with the team I’m in now [Aspar], we were with KTM and it obviously wasn’t the ideal bike at the time. And we saw the factory team was struggling and then they pulled the budget. It was not easy.
“Then we went to Petronas and it was just the biggest shower of shit I’ve ever ridden on. The bosses there were so bad. Just the way they treated the riders, not just me but every rider. I actually started going good in 2020. I led some races, I finished in top fours, top fives but then I broke my wrist. So, that put me back in 2021, and then the team imploded.”
Source: Autosport