Jake Dixon had a challenging day at his home round of the World Superbike Championship.

He had a crash early on in free practice one and had to sit out of the remainder of the session this morning. Luckily for Jake he wasn’t injured and could get back on his Honda for the afternoon session.

It was clear that Dixon was keen to make up for lost time. Making some setup adjustments to his CBR1000RR-R, the SBK rookie gradually improved on his lap times despite a much hotter track surface (43°C).

By the end of day 1, the Dover born rider had set a best of 1’26.608 to place sixteenth on the timesheets.

Speaking at the end of the day, Dixon said: “No physical consequences at all from the crash in FP1, but of course there is some disappointment with how the morning went. We lost a lot of track time, but I want to thank the team for their hard work in quickly repairing the bike.

“Overall, I’m pretty happy with the way we’re moving forward with the setup. Riding it, I feel like this is the first time we’ve made a good step, so I’m pretty happy about that. But let’s try and make another step tomorrow morning and just keep chipping away.

“This is a weekend where we need to start building and then continue that work through the rest of the season, just trying to find our way with the bike. I’m happy enough for now.”