Lowes in the thick of victory fight in Aragón Race 1
Sam Lowes took a superb 3rd place on Saturday in Spain and finished within one second of the race winner.
Having qualified 4th, Lowes was fighting Toprak Razgatlioglu and Nicolo Bulega for victory in an exciting first WorldSBK race at the Motorland Aragón Circuit.
Lowes believes some tweaks to his engine braking setting could aid him as he looks to back up his fifth podium of the year in Sunday’s Superpolerace at 11am local time and Race 2 at 2pm.
// SAM LOWES: Superpole: 4th, Race 1: 3rd
Having ended Friday at the fast, technical Motorland Aragón Circuit with the third quickest time, Sam confirmed his good feelings on his Elf Marc VDS Racing Team Ducati Panigale V4R by placing 2nd in FP3.
Lowes delivered another super performance in a red-hot Superpole session with the previous circuit record smashed by half a second. The Briton was 4th, with his best time of 1’47.550 just 0.2s off Bulega’s pole time.
In Race 1 Lowes had a strong start and was soon up to 3rd behind Razgatlioglu and Bulega at the close of lap one.
Even though the pace increased as the race progressed, Sam hung in there with the lead pair and left Alvaro Bautista and Danilo Petrucci behind.
The 35-year old didn’t quite get close enough to try a pass in the final laps, but was still very much in the fight. Lowes collected his fifth podium of the year, just 0.97 behind winner Razgatlioglu – his closest margin to victory in the WorldSBK class.
“It’s great for the team and I’m delighted that Marc (van der Straten) is here to see it.”
“I’m really happy with today. I’m really happy with how qualifying went. The lap time was fast. Then in the race I was there in third place. I didn’t have much left to go faster and really challenge those guys up ahead. But I could sit behind them quite comfortably. I felt like third was my position today. But that’s good. It’s great for the team and I’m delighted that Marc (van der Straten) is here to see it. He’s put so much effort in to making this project a possibility and now in the second season we’re starting to see some good results. We’ll see what we can do on Sunday. It would be nice if we could do another two races like that tomorrow. I think today was the closest I’ve been to victory in this class. Also, the way I did the race was really positive. There are a few things to improve, but we’re talking small details. Yesterday it was clear I had to improve in Sector 3 but today I was alright there. Now we can maybe make a few tweaks to the electronics and the engine brake setting. We’ll keep working and I’ll be up for having another go tomorrow.”