Lowes makes rapid start in Assen
The opening day of the Assen WorldSBK round got off to a positive start for Elf Marc VDS Racing Team rider Sam Lowes who powered his Ducati Panigale V4R machine into the top six
Day one in the Netherlands saw Lowes excel at the iconic 4.55km track and the British star finished top Independent Team rider after completing 39 very productive laps.
Superpole gets underway at 11am local time tomorrow ahead of Race 1 that is scheduled to start at 2pm.
/// SAM LOWES: 6TH, 1:34.135, 39 LAPS
The weekend action commenced in dry but cool conditions of just 12 degrees this morning and Lowes completed 18 laps to set a best time of 1:35.283 that placed him 11th on the timesheets.
With temperatures climbing to 17 degrees for the start of the afternoon FP2 session, lap times tumbled and Lowes made huge strides forward to post a best time of 1:34.135.
That was a massive improvement of 1.1s compared to FP1 and he finished sixth overall and third fastest Ducati on a confidence boosting opening day.
The 34-year-old finished just over 0.2s away from the top three having set fast and consistent times over a succession of laps on Pirelli’s new development rear tyre that features in this weekend’s allocation.
“We can be very competitive tomorrow”
“I always love riding here in Assen and coming here I was confident we had good potential because the fast and flowing layout suits my style. I felt a lot better in FP2 this afternoon. This morning we used the hard rear tyre and didn’t change it through FP1 but I was still able to do my best lap right at the end. I knew we could make a big improvement in FP2 and we were able to do that. I felt good on the bike and I was strong on the new development rear tyre from Pirelli. I did a long run on that and I had good pace and consistency so we can look forward to being very competitive tomorrow.”