Jake Dixon posted a brilliant late Q2 run to claim fourth place on the grid for Sunday’s Moto2 race at Balaton Park, while Filip Salac was 10th.

Despite wind picking up on Saturday afternoon, conditions were generally good on qualifying day at the Balaton Park with track temperatures standing at 38 degrees during Q2.

As witnessed on Friday, Moto2 times were exceptionally close around the tight, 4.0km track with just 0.09s separating the top four in qualifying.

A decent crowd is expected on Sunday to watch the 22-lap Moto2 race, which gets underway at 12.15 local time.

Jake Dixon, 4th – 1’40.463

Jake and his crew continued to work through Friday evening to fine tune their setting to aid the Briton’s stopping capabilities. Aside from a low-speed Turn 1 crash in FP2, he started the day well, placing 10^th in that session.

The 29-year old didn’t manage a clean run in the first half of Q2, which meant he languished down in 17^th with just a few minutes remaining.

But Jake positioned himself brilliantly for the final run and jumped to 4^th with his final lap of the session, just 0.08s off Diogo Moreira’s pole time.

“Day by day, session by session we’re starting to figure out this problem with stopping the bike that we’ve been having. This morning was a little better but we still needed to fine-tune the package before qualifying. Compared to what we ran before, our set-up is quite different and I’ve had to adjust a few things. I didn’t get a clean lap in my first run in Q2. But fortunately, in my second, I had a nice reference in front of me. I could put the lap together and do a good job. Credit to the team that have been working tirelessly. I’m not saying we’ve fixed our problem completely but I feel we’re on the way to solving it. I need to do my part by piecing it together and adapting to this slightly new riding style. I’m pretty happy with how today went and now I’m curious to see how tomorrow goes.”

Filip Salac, 10th – 1’40.842

Following on from a strong Friday, Filip was immediately in the zone on Saturday morning and was 7^th at the close of the 30 minutes, 0.3s back of P1.

The Czech rider enjoyed a strong start to Q2. His 3^rd lap on his first run put Filip on the provisional front row, before he stopped for a change of tyre.

The 23-year old unfortunately lost his reference ahead on track for his second run. While he improved on his final lap, it was only good enough for 10^th.

“It was a good morning here in Hungary. I was fast right from the beginning. In Q2 I set a good lap in my first outing and was feeling good. Then when I stopped, I tried to follow Jake and Aron (Canet) to have a good reference for my second run. But we changed the front tyre, which took a while. So in the end, I went alone and just missed having someone ahead of me on track. I was struggling a bit with the rear part of the bike. I’m a bit frustrated as our speed was definitely better than tenth place. But it wasn’t a disaster and for sure we’ll give everything to fight at the front tomorrow.“