Jake Dixon and Filip Salac enjoyed a strong start to the 2025 season on Friday at the Thai Grand Prix by qualifying automatically for Saturday’s Q2 qualifying session.

The 2025 MotoGP season kicked off in blazing fashion at the Chang International Circuit on Friday, with Elf Marc VDS Racing Team duo Jake Dixon and Filip Salac riding in punishing ambient temperatures of 35 degrees.

Moto2 has a revised format for 2025. Mirroring MotoGP, Friday afternoon’s Practice is now the only timed session which counts toward who automatically qualifies for Saturday’s Q2 qualifying session.

There was added significance on Friday afternoon’s Practice session, as the 28-rider Moto2 field contested the top 14 places, who guaranteed a spot in Q2.

Jake Dixon, 7th – 1’35.390

After his calmest preseason in some time, the Briton started the weekend confidently. He was able to lap the 4.55km circuit with a time of 1’35.364 in FP1, which was good enough for 5^th place.

Jake followed that up by working on his race setting for the first part of Practice. He showed strong rhythm over a 9-lap run, with five laps in the 1’35s.

Languishing outside the top 14 with just minutes to spare, the 29-year old then posted his second fastest time of the day – a 1’35.390 – to sit 7^th at the end of play.

“The outcome of day one here in Buriram was hot – very hot! Being a Brit, I’m not used to this heat! Overall, it was a good day. I’m not getting too wrapped up in the times just yet but I think we are where we expected to be. Let’s see how tomorrow goes. We’ll keep working. It’s a new day. At the moment, I’m not looking too far ahead. We’ll take Saturday as new sessions, and we’ll try to keep improving and see what the outcome is.”

Filip Salac, 13^th – 1’35.435

Riding at one of his strongest circuits, Filip enjoyed an enthusiastic start to FP1, and backed up his new team-mate with the 6^th fastest time.

He then built on that promise in the afternoon, as he posted a 9-lap run, which displayed decent consistency.

The Czech rider was unable to achieve his full potential late on as he caught traffic and a handful of yellow flags on his final run. Filip ended the session 13^th knowing there is more to come on Saturday.

“It’s been a warm day here in Buriram! I enjoyed being back on the bike a lot and starting a race weekend. I think we did a good job. From FP1 we’ve been doing a lot of quality laps. In the afternoon session we tried to set some fast lap times but I was in a big group of riders and there were a few yellow flags so we weren’t able to do our best. Our ideal lap time is 0.3s faster than what we did. Anyway, I think we did a good job as a team as Jake and I were helping each other at the end of Practice. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and think we can make another step forward.”