Sam Lowes showed speed and aggression to finish Race 1 in 3rd place at the Motorland Aragón Circuit to claim a 4th podium finish of 2026. 

Having qualified fourth, Lowes enjoyed a brilliant ride to third place in the first race of the weekend.

Lowes believes some tweaks to his setting could aid his podium quest in Sunday’s Superpole race at 11:10 local time and Race 2 at 15:30.

^{// SAM LOWES: Superpole: 4th, Race 1: 3rd}

Having ended Friday at the fast, flowing Motorland Aragón Circuit with the fourth quickest time, Sam had a tricky start to Saturday as he crashed at Turn 5 early in FP3.

Nevertheless, Sam was confident of replicating his Friday form in Superpole. The Briton’s best lap – a 1’47.405 – came at the start of his second run, which was enough to put the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team Ducati Panigale V4R in 4th place.

But for encountering traffic on his last run, the 35-year old could have qualified even higher. His ideal time was good enough for 2nd, which gave him added confidence going into Race 1.

Lowes started the 18-lap race well and held position on the first lap, just behind brother Alex.

Keen to pass his sibling and try to hang on to the Aruba.it Racing Ducatis, Lowes made an excellent overtake for third on lap two.

From there, the Briton attempted to claw back ground on the top two, setting his fastest lap of the race the seventh time around. Even if he couldn’t reel them in, Lowes came home in 3rd, comfortably clear of brother Alex.

Lowes’ 4th WorldSBK podium of 2026 gives him confidence he can replicate this result on Sunday, when he will launch from 4th place in the Superpole race.

“I’m sure we can fight for the podium again tomorrow”

“It was a positive race. Obviously, it’s nice to get back on the podium after missing it in the last two rounds. The day didn’t start so well as I crashed in FP3. So, I want to apologise to the team for that. But we managed to save the situation with a good qualifying performance. I felt I could have done a bit more in qualifying but I got a lot of traffic on my second tyre. It was still a good Superpole and I’m sure we can build on today’s Race 1 performance and fight for the podium again tomorrow. Let’s make some improvements tonight and we’ll come back again and aim high on Sunday.”