#DutchGP ends with Xavi Vierge eighth and Jake Dixon 18th

After an outstanding first lap, Xavi Vierge made his way through the field to end the DutchGP eighth, while PETRONAS Sprinta Racing team-mate Jake Dixon crossed the Assen finish line 18th.

A lightning start from Vierge saw him climb from 23rd to tenth on the opening lap, before claiming another three places one lap later. Unfortunately the Spaniard was pushed wide by another rider and found himself 11th on lap five. Battling hard to maintain his position, Xavi eventually moved into eighth place with five laps to go. Although he was able to successfully defend his position, he was unable to close the gap to those ahead and ended the DutchGP eighth. Increasing his points total to 50, Vierge holds onto ninth in the riders’ standings.

Team-mate Dixon also had a good start and was 18th by the end of the opening lap, having lined up 21st on the grid. The Brit served his long lap penalty from the GermanGP on lap 4, which saw him drop back to 24th. Steadily making progress through the field, Jake was back up to 18th when he was deemed to have taken a shortcut at Turn 18 and had to serve another long lap penalty. Despite this, Dixon still crossed the line 18th and goes into the summer break 21st in the championship.

There will be no track action for Vierge and Dixon now until the Grand Prix of Styria (6-8 August), as the paddock now heads into the summer break.

Xavi Vierge
8th (+16.052)

After a tough weekend today was so good and the team worked so hard. They have given me a bike that I have so much confidence on and we had a great race. We had a good start and I was with the front group, it’s just a pity that someone touched me and I went off the track. It made me lose the front group. I gave all I have though and we finished in eighth, which is really positive after the weekend we have had. Once again I want to thank my team for their support and now we have a good break to analyse and learn from the beginning of the season, to make sure we come back stronger in the second half.

Jake Dixon
18th (+26.245)

Warm Up was really good, I’ve been struggling a little when changing direction but the team have been working hard to try to keep improving this. I think we just ran out of time to really change this, especially with FP2 being wet. We did the best that we could do in the race and we’ve been able to gather a large amount of data, which we can use to come up with a good plan for Austria. We’ve shown glimmers of speed in the past two Grands Prix, we just need to put it all together. I’m looking forward to the second half of the season and I just want to thank my crew for the fantastic job they’re doing.