After dusting himself off from a first MotoGP fall, Jake Dixon lowered his best Silverstone lap time by 1.8s and mixed with the tail end of the premier-class gr🔯id on Saturday♛ at the British MotoGP.

Facing a race against time to learn as much as possible about the Petronas Yamaha ahead of Sunday's grand prix, the Englishman - plucked by SRT from Moto2 to rid🐎e alongside Valen🔯tino Rossi this weekend - fell from the M1 early in the morning.

"It started as a difficꦛult day becau🥂se obviously crashing in FP3 wasn't ideal, but it was my own mistake and it's what happens when you don’t have too much time to learn!" Dixon said.

"You jus💛t try to push the limit and understand the tyres as soon as possible. But overall it was 💎a really good day and it's just been a massive learning curve.

"An area that I need to improve on is the mid-p▨art of braking. The initial point is actually the same as the others, Fabio♛ and everyone. But during my mid-point I don’t brake hard enough, so I don’t decelerate enough.

"Basically that was all that happened in the fall. I braked late, di❀dn't decelerate enough and then was trailing too much brake over the bumps and unfortunately went down.

"I needed to improve by leaning the bike more, which is a strange thing to say on a big bike, but the angle you can get with t♉hese tyres is incredible a🔯nd if you put more angle you get more turning.

"Just minor areas but minor areas c🤡an make big differences, especially around here wit🤡h the big sweeping corners. And when you do lean with this Yamaha the bike turns incredibly!"

Closing to within two-seconds of fastest rider in both final practice and qualifying, one aspect that Dixon can't control is the lack ofꦬ straight-line speed from the 2019-based A-Spec machine.

Dixon sat bottom of the speed charts, 5km/h from next slowest Rossi (on the 2021 factory spec bike) and 16/km/h from the quickest Ducati in FP4. But with so much to learn in so few laps, time given away♋ on the straights is 🔯not something Dixon has even considered.

"I've got too many other things to worry abo𓃲ut rather than how much I'm losing on the straight!" he smiled. "Honestly, it's just a matter of taking everything in. Imagine saying to somebody, 'you've got 60 laps and within 60 laps you've got to be as fast as you can possibly be' against the guys that ride the bikes all the time. It's hard, you know.

"I've enjoyed it a lot! Obviously, I wish I was going to get more time on the bike and I wish I could be a full-time MotoGP rider. I don’t have that luxury but I feel like today I've done a really ওgood job. I feel like I can pat myse⛎lf on the back and say to be here and within 60 laps do a 2m 0.8s is not so bad!"

Dixon's qualifying time left him 21st and last (after the withd🤪raw of Lorenzo Savadori), 0.478s from KTM race winner Miguel Oliveira and 0.6s from the next closest Yamaha of test rider Cal Crutchlow.

"I've no doubt given tim🐻e and the🅠 right opportunity I'd be able to do a very good job with the big bikes and I'm not so far away around a two-minute lap."

Turning to Sunday's r💯ace, Dixon's is encouraged by his pace in FP4, when he began to challenge other riders on the🅷 timesheet and finished ahead of Luca Marini.

"As you saw in FP4, the pace is a lot slower and I was able to be in the mix with the other riders around me and for a long time I was in froღnt of Cal and a couple of other riders.

"In the race it's obviously going to be difficult not to get too excited and start to spin the rear too much and overheat the rear, because I think that'ꦅs a big thing on this bike.

"But I'm just going to🎐 try and stay with the group for as long as I possibly can and not use too much rear tyre. It's not that easy to just race with these guys after so few laps and not use too much tyre."