Sam Lowes bounced back superbly from a bruising practice crash to qualify inside the top 10 and claim a hard-fought points scoring finish in the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team’s WorldSBK Championship debut in Australia.

• The British rider fell heavily in the high-speed final corner in the early stages of FP3 but undeterred he set an impressive time of 1:28.676 in his first WorldSBK Superpole to qualify third fastest Ducati and eighth overall.
• Early aggression put Lowes into sixth place for the opening five laps of 20 and the 33-year-old was comfortably inside the top 10 ahead of a compulsory pit stop to change tyres between laps nine and 11.
• Lowes opted to pit for fresh rubber on lap 10 and after slipping back to 15^th he set his best lap of the race on lap 15 and was able to fight back to take 13^th position at the chequered flag.

/// SAM LOWES: 13^th 

“I felt strong in the first part of the race”

“It feels good to get my first WorldSBK race in the books and it was certainly a different experience with the pit stop. That made it feel like a bit of a strange race and unfortunately once I was back out on track, we encountered a couple of issues. We will look into that and try and get to the bottom of it tonight, so we are stronger tomorrow. It’s a pity because I felt strong in the first part of the race, and I was holding my position fighting for the top six. We have gained a lot of information and experience and I think we have the potential for a much better result tomorrow.”