Dixon: We’ve still got work to do despite double

Jake Dixon feels set-up work with his RAF Regular and Reserve Kawasaki still needs to be done to improve its tyre life conversation across a race distance despite dominating to a double victory at Oulton Park and cutting into Leon Haslam’s lead.

The Bennetts British Superbike title contender produced the perfect start to his Showdown by topping both Friday practice sessions, taking a lap record pole position and both race wins at the Cheshire track.

Dixon’s two wins sees him eat into Haslam’s lead, cutting it from 45 points down to 31 points, but feels rather than settle with his flawless race weekend set-up tweaks still need to be found to produce tyre life gains.

After pulling out a healthy time gap of over six seconds by lap seven when Haslam moved into second place during race two, Dixon suffered a drop in tyre performance over the second half of the race which saw his BSB title rival close the gap to 1.2 seconds at the chequered flag.

“I’m lost for words because the team have provided me with such a great bike but at times I had to dig deep,” Dixon, who is strongly linked with a Moto2 move for 2019, said. “With eight laps to go my tyre fell to pieces and at the beginning I was so fast but I didn’t have the tyre to continue it all the way through.

“I wasn’t event spinning the tyre at the beginning but if we can find those last few laps and keep the tyre with me then we’ll be really strong. We’ve got some work to do there but I am happy with two wins.

“Well done to Leon and Tommy though as they rode fantastic all weekend in really tricky conditions where it was quite easy to get caught out this weekend.”

Dixon’s double at Oulton Park marks his first BSB race wins away from Knockhill having taken a maiden double at the Scottish track in 2017 followed by his third career win earlier this year.