Jake Dixon was back in the points in the opening race of the penultimate World Superbike round in Estoril today.

A final practice session early in the day allowed Dixon to continue work on the setup of his CBR1000RR-R FIREBLADE SP machine. He improved on his Friday lap times by more than four tenths, with Dixon placing tenth with a 1’35.520.

The Superpole qualifying session ran later in the morning in warm, dry conditions. With Dixon ultimately putting in an impressive 1’34.788 to secure seventh place and a spot on the third row of the grid. This marked a significant improvement on his previous best time of the weekend.

Race 1 got underway at 3.30pm local time in similarly warm conditions. Keen to exploit his strong qualifying position, Jake unfortunately lost several places off the line, dropping to fourteenth by the end of the opening lap. Despite struggling to find the pace he had hoped for, Dixon worked to recover positions over the course of the 21 laps, eventually crossing the line in twelfth place to secure another points finish.

Speaking after race one, Dixon said: “Qualifying was good, and I felt I got the maximum out of the package we had today. But we’ve been struggling all weekend, so I knew the race was going to be difficult.

“The start didn’t help, as I immediately lost several positions, but honestly, even with a better start, I think we would still have struggled because we just didn’t have the pace we needed.

“We showed already that we can respond to challenging situations, so we’ll put our heads together tonight and work hard to find some solutions and have a better bike for tomorrow.”