Days at the office don’t get much better than that if your name is Jake Dixon (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team). P1 in FP1 was backed up by a dominant P1 in Practice to see the British rider sail into Saturday as the rider to beat in Moto2 at the Red Bull Grand Prix of The Americas, as Tony Arbolino (BLUCRU Pramac Yamaha Moto2) and Alonso Lopez (Team HDR Heidrun) pocketed P2 and P3 on Friday.
After Alonso Lopez (Team HDR Heidrun) led the opening exchanges of Practice, Dixon surged to the summit of the session by the midway point and with 10 minutes to go, the #96 was 0.7s clear of the chasers on a drying Circuit of The Americas.
With under five minutes to go, a clear dry line was appearing around a large part of the 5.5km long layout, which meant we saw some late improvers. Arbolino climbed to P2 with less than two minutes to go, Sergio Garcia’s QJMOTOR – FRINSA – MSI replacement, Oscar Gutierrez, jumped to an impressive P7 before rookie star Daniel Holgado (CFMOTO Power Electronics Aspar Team) went P5 – and then P4 on his final flyer. But World Championship leader Manuel Gonzalez (Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP) was struggling. A crash at Turn 12 was followed by the Spaniard being unable to find a better lap once he’d got back out, seeing the title chase leader finish in P26, 3.984s off Dixon’s pace.
Celestino Vietti (Team HDR Heidrun) completed the top five behind Dixon, Arbolino, Lopez and Holgado, with Alex Escrig (KLINT Forward Factory Team) doing a great job to earn P6. Barry Baltus (Fantic Racing LINO SENOGO) and Marcos Ramirez (OnlyFans American Racing Team) claimed P7 and P8 respectively, as Gutierrez bagged a first automatic Q2 spot in P9. As did Yuki Kunii, the IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia rookie ended Practice in P10, as Aron Canet (Fantic Racing LINO SENOGO), Zonta van den Goorbergh (RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP), Senna Agius (Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP) and Mario Aji (IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia) were the final top 14 riders on Friday in Austin.
Work to do in Q1 then for Gonzalez, while home hero Joe Roberts (OnlyFans American Racing Team) will also be hoping he can get into the pole position fight from Q1 on Saturday afternoon. Tune in at 13:45 local time (UTC -5) to watch how the Moto2 Americas GP grid is formed.