The 10th round of the 2026 WorldSBK Championship at Cremona in Italy got off to a great start for Elf Marc VDS Racing Team star Sam Lowes who fought for the top three in both Free Practice sessions today 

Lowes missed out on the top three in Free Practice 1 this morning by just 0.170s and he closed the day in fifth position overall after once again finishing fourth fastest in this afternoon’s second session.

The first race action around the tight and twisty 3.7km Cremona track will be underway with Race 1 at 1530pm local time on Saturday afternoon.

/// SAM LOWES: 5th, 1:28.752, 43 laps 

With autumn in full swing, ambient temperatures were still at 20 degrees when FP1 commenced this morning and Lowes was rapidly into a fast rhythm when he found an impressive 1:28.959 on just his fourth lap.

Lowes would find more pace just two laps later and a 1:28.752 would prove to be his best of the entire day, which secured him fifth place in a Ducati dominated opening day that ended with the Bologna brand locking out the top seven places overall on home turf.

This afternoon’s Free Practice 2 session was a dramatic affair with several high-profile crashes, but Lowes was inch perfect on board his Ducati Panigale V4R machine to once again compete for the top three.

Having found two laps in the 1.28s this morning, Lowes opted to dedicate Free Practice 2 to working on race pace with ambient temperature climbing to 25 degrees.

Although Lowes lapped marginally outside of his FP1 benchmark, the 36-year-old reeled off six laps in the 1:28 bracket during a fast and consistent 15-lap distance run that enabled the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team to collect valuable race data ahead of Race 1 tomorrow.

“It feels like we’ve made a really strong start” 

“It has been a decent first day and we’ve been able to really focus and work hard on our race pace. I did a lot of good laps and found a good rhythm and to be honest it feels like one of the best first days we’ve had all season. I feel like we were in the mix in both sessions but today has shown where I need to make a step in a couple of parts of the track. If we can improve I’m confident we’ve set ourselves up for a strong weekend and we can go into Saturday feeling good about our chances of performing well.”