Can Jake Dixon’s ‘nightmare-to-dream’ Moto2 title challenge continue?

Nearly 10 years have passed since Britain last celebrated a world champion at grand prix level. 

Danny Kent’s historic Moto3 success in 2015 was a landmark moment for the UK’s bike racing scene, ending almost 40 years of waiting since Barry Sheene’s 1977 500cc world championship.

It never really kicked things on, though. Cal Crutchlow took a significant pair of MotoGP wins in 2016, while Sam Lowes jumped up to from Moto2 to MotoGP with Aprilia the following year.

However, Lowes was back in Moto2 for 2018 and would never scale the same championship heights as Kent through to his final year in the series in 2023. Kent made an unsuccessful Moto2 return after his Moto3 title, but struggled for speed and would be gone before 2018 was over.

Crutchlow would win again in 2018, but would mark his last grand prix victory. And by 2021, there were no Brits on the MotoGP at all.

The British Talent Cup hasn’t done much in the way of promoting talent, while the Vision Track Moto3 squad run by Michael Laverty is far from unearthing and nurturing the UK’s next best MotoGP hopeful.

All hopes, then, rest of Jake Dixon. And there is hope indeed.

Dixon’s time in Moto2 since 2019 has been tricky. Uncompetitive machinery and numerous injury woes have conspired against the 28-year-old. Since 2022, however, Dixon has become a consistent Moto2 frontrunner.

He managed six podiums that year on his way to sixth in the standings, while in 2023 he breached the top step of the podium twice - at Assen, for the first time, and then repeating it in Barcelona. He ended the year fourth in the points and at one stage was touted as a possible MotoGP candidate for this season.

That didn’t come to pass and, frankly, after the first few rounds of 2024 it seemed like that chance may never return.

Crashing heavily in practice for the Qatar GP, Dixon wound up in hospital with internal trauma - though no broken bones. He sat out the opening round of the campaign and missed the second one in Portugal. When he returned at Austin, he crashed while running in the top six and remounted to finish 24th.

He crashed out of the top seven at the Spanish GP, while in France he struggled to 17th. After five rounds, was 89 points off the championship lead with a glaring, confidence-sapping zero next to his name.

At the Catalan GP, Dixon scored his first points of the year with a third. A 12th in Italy and fourth in the Netherlands followed, before he was second in Germany, won his home British GP and finished third at the Austrian GP.

But it was last weekend’s Aragon GP in which Dixon made his biggest statement. Qualifying on pole, Dixon controlled most of the race, only briefly losing the lead to Marc VDS’ Tony Arbolino. He would beat the Italian by 1.779s to tally up his second win of the season.

“Well, I’m living my dream,” Dixon, dedicating his win to Sylvain Guintoli and his son, who has been diagnosed with cancer, said. 

“Fantastic race. I’m living my absolute dream. I’ve turned the season around. I was living a nightmare at the beginning of the year, but it taught me so many lessons and how to be grateful for what I have and how to be present in the moment. 

"I can’t thank the fans enough for cheering me, my family, everyone. I just can’t believe I’m in the world championship winning races and doing the things I’m doing. It’s always been a dream.”

Aspar ideal for Jake Dixon

At the Aspar squad, Dixon has found the family atmosphere that has helped him flourish. While his initial stint with the squad in 2019 didn’t work out on the uncompetitive KTM chassis, his return in 2022 following “the biggest shower of shit” - as he told this writer last year - at Petronas SRT has been far more fruitful.

In some ways, it’s a shame this partnership will end in 2024 as Dixon heads for the Marc VDS squad as it switches to the Boscoscuro chassis that is the pick of the class right now in Moto2.

But it’s not going anywhere for the time being and that’s just as well. After Aragon, Dixon has thrust himself back into the Moto2 title picture. He’s 43 points adrift of Sergio Garcia at the top of the standings, with 200 points left to play for.

The past few years for Dixon have seen there be flashes of brilliance that weren’t sustained. Between Italy and Barcelona last season, he was on the podium four out of six times - including two races wins. But he wouldn’t see the podium again. 

In 2022, he managed three straight third-place finishes from Assen to Red Bull Ring, but retired out of the next two and was fourth in the following brace of races before score back-to-back podiums.

That consistency is the biggest question mark Dixon has to answer in the next couple of weeks, particularly with back-to-back Misano rounds coming up at a venue he hasn’t enjoyed much success at in Moto2. Twelfth last year, his best at Misano is a sixth in the 2020 Emilia Romagna GP.

But beyond Misano, there are good tracks coming up for Dixon. He was fourth in Indonesia and Japan last year; managed a podium in Australia and Malaysia the year before; was fourth in Thailand in 2022 and sixth in Valencia last season. So there is a big chance to continue this purple patch.

The championship fight itself has also been mixed. Garcia has hit a mental wall since finding out he won’t be a MotoGP rider next year, and that’s seen his form fall right away recent. At Aragon, the helpless MT Helmets team rider pulled out having circulated at the back of the field until his early retirement.

That has seen his lead cut to 12 points by team-mate Ai Ogura, who was a fighting eighth but is still recovering from a right hand fracture he suffered in Austria. That will cause him some grief at the predominantly clockwise Misano this weekend. But even before that, Ogura scored just two points from a difficult British GP.

Third-placed Alonso Lopez has been strong on the Boscoscuro, but has just one win to his credit and has also lacked consistency. Winning in Qatar, he scored nothing in Portugal, a fourth in America, nothing in Spain, third in France, seventh in Barcelona, third in Italy and no podium again until Austria.

Joe Roberts has also lacked the consistency he showed at the start of the year, with his win at Mugello his last podium appearance so far and a scorecard since that features three non-scores flanked by an eighth in Germany and ninth in Austria. Consistency has been the same issue for Fermin Aldeguer, who tangled with Deniz Oncu at Aragon, in sixth in the points.

Sixty points covers the top eight in the championship after Aragon, leaving plenty of room for more changes. But if Dixon can truly harness his current form, he will stand out as being one of the biggest threats for the championship.

Can Jake Dixon go to MotoGP?

If he still has any ambitions of getting to MotoGP in the future, winning this year’s Moto2 title will be crucial in that quest. Most seats are locked down to the end of 2026, with just a handful of rides coming up for offer in next year’s rider market.

The continued struggles Silverstone has faced in attracting crowds for the British GP - with just 42,529 people turning up on Sunday in 2024 - a championship title in Moto2 may prompt Dorna into helping find Dixon a place on the 2026 grid in MotoGP to capitalise on home interest.

That’s not to say this is his only route to the top. But by the start of the 2026 season, Dixon will be 30 and the groundswell of young talent in Moto2 right now and rising up the ranks will not put him high on team managers’ lists of MotoGP hires.

Therefore, the next eight rounds of the 2024 Moto2 campaign will be the most important of Dixon’s career if he wants to ensure his 2021 British and Aragon GP premier class appearances with SRT Yamaha as an injury stand-in don’t remain his only MotoGP race.

Having come from where he was at the start of the year, though, he’s been moulded tough and is clearly equipped to deal with the pressure. If his results can hold, Britain’s wait for another world title in grand prix racing won’t be for much longer…