Elf Marc VDS Racing Team rider Sam Lowes had a final Saturday in the 2026 WorldSBK Championship to remember after he started and finished Race 1 in a stunning second place at the Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto 

Lowes was in sparkling form from the off this morning to finish Superpole in an excellent second place, which he then followed up with a classy ride to second in the 20-lap Race 1.

The final race action of the season gets underway tomorrow with the Superpole showdown at 1110am local time and will be followed by Race 2 over 20 laps at 1530pm.

^{// SAM LOWES: Superpole: 2nd, Race 1: 2nd}

After ending day one with the second fastest time, Lowes was instantly back into his fast groove this morning and a superb lap of 1:36.960 secured him his fifth front row start of the campaign.

Lowes was the only rider with new WorldSBK Champion Nicolo Bulega to lap in the 1:36 bracket in Superpole, as the pair remained the dominant duo on track after placing first and second on Friday.

Race 1 turned out to be another affair completely dominated by Bulega and Lowes, with the Elf Marc VDS Racing rider relentlessly maintaining pressure on the Italian throughout.

Lowes delivered a faultless performance that never saw his second place come under any serious threat and he motored to the 15th podium finish of his WorldSBK career by the comfortable margin of 1.1s over Iker Lecuona.

Today’s big 20-point haul could prove to be hugely significant in deciding the outcome of fourth in the final standings, with Lowes now seizing fourth from twin brother Alex with 37 points left to fight for tomorrow.

“I’m happy with the day and want to say to thank you to the team”

“
Yeah, it was a positive Saturday. I was really happy with my lap in qualifying to do a 36. It’s been a good weekend so far and a solid day – I’m happy with the way I’m riding after last weekend where I was struggling quite a lot. 
So I’m happy with the day and want to say to thank you to the team. It’s nice to be at the last round of the year and doing good performances. 
It means we can take some motivation into tomorrow and into the off-season. Let’s see what tomorrow brings. Obviously, same for everybody if it rains, so we’ll just see what we can do.”