Elf Marc VDS Racing Team rider Sam Lowes gave his hopes of finishing inside the top three in this year’s WorldSBK Championship a massive boost today by claiming a vital podium in Race 1 at the Cremona track in Italy 

The number 14 fought off constant pressure from home crowd hero Lorenzo Baldassarri over 23 laps in Race 1 to claim his 14th podium finish in WorldSBK, which moves back into fourth in the overall standings

Lowes will look to make more big gains in the hunt for third overall tomorrow with the Superpole Race at 1110am local time and Race 2 at 1530pm

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

Race 1 saw Lowes launch away from fourth position on the grid after he was in the heart of a pulsating battle for pole position in the earlier Superpole session run in gloriously sunny conditions.

A brilliant lap of 1:27.627 rocketed Lowes up to second place in Superpole with just over two minutes remaining as he hunted a 10th front row start in his WorldSBK career.

But pushing hard to secure his fifth Superpole top three in 2026, Lowes lost control of his Ducati Panigale V4R machine at turn 13 with just over one minute of the session remaining.

Firing away from the second row in an all-Ducati top six on the grid, Lowes was briefly fifth before Yari Montella tumbled out of second at the final corner on lap one and then he moved into third when Alberto Surra fell out of contention.

With all the drama unfolding ahead of him, the Briton kept his cool and with a superb attacking display he never gave a determined Baldassarri any of hope of snatching a ninth podium of the season away.

Third today moved Lowes onto 214 points and going into tomorrow’s race action he sits just 33-points behind Yari Montella in the fight for third overall in the World Championship.

“Dug in, dug deep, got the podium,” 

“It was a good Saturday. Obviously, a little bit disappointed to crash at the end of qualifying, but I didn’t have the pace to be on the front row anyway, so 4th was a good qualifying. I was struggling a little bit at the beginning of the race, just to be any faster, but then I kept my pace well throughout the race and did a nice job the 10 laps to pull away from the riders behind and get the podium. So, yeah, really happy with that. Dug in, dug deep, got the podium, and I’ll try to improve my weak points for tomorrow – I’m still struggling in sector 2. Nothing to do with the bike, just the way that I’m approaching it. So I need to analyse that well tonight.”