Jake Dixon (Honda) is chasing his first World Championship points: “My second race weekend”

Regular readers of SPEEDWEEK.com will be familiar with Jake Dixon’s ordeal: The Honda rider sustained a protracted hand injury in a crash during the Phillip Island test ahead of the season opener, missed the first five rounds of the 2026 Superbike World Championship, made a premature comeback at MotorLand Aragón (sitting out race day), sat out Misano and completed his first full race weekend on the CBR1000RR-R at his home race at Donington Park.

Following the summer break of almost two months, the complex hand injury is finally behind him. From Magny-Cours onwards, Dixon’s aim is to lay the foundations for the coming season and perhaps deliver the odd highlight – the 30-year-old from Dover has yet to feature in the overall standings without a points-scoring finish.

In preparation, the Honda Racing Corporation works team completed a test on the French circuit. As long-standing G-series riders, neither Dixon nor his team-mate Somkiat Chantra were familiar with the Circuit de Nevers in central France.

“Magny-Cours is just around the corner and I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be nice to be racing again. This will be my second full race weekend since returning from injury, so I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things in the upcoming races,” said the Englishman. “We had a test here in August, which was very helpful in familiarising me with the track. It was a good test, despite the incredibly hot conditions. The temperatures are likely to be a bit lower this weekend, but I’m really looking forward to it. Let’s see what we can achieve.”

80 per cent of the set-up sorted.

Somkiat Chantra (Honda)

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“The test was very intensive,” added the Thai rider. “We tried to work on all aspects, including the set-up, and it looks as though we’ve found about 80 per cent of the basic set-up. As for the remaining 20 per cent, we’ll fine-tune that over the course of the weekend and see how it goes.”