The penultimate round of this year’s WorldSBK Championship got underway at the Estoril track today and saw Elf Marc VDS Racing Team star Sam Lowes show plenty of promise in Portugal 

Day one on Portugal’s Atlantic coast proved to be a productive one for the 36-year-old, who set competitive times in both Free Practice sessions to finish just 0.3s away from the top five.

The latest contest for crucial World Championship points begins at 1530pm local time tomorrow afternoon with Race 1.

/// SAM LOWES: 14th, 1:36.184, 37 laps 

In ambient temperatures of 20 degrees this morning, Lowes eased himself into the weekend by running a constant pace in the 45-minute Free Practice 1 session that ended with seven Ducatis occupying the top nine spots.

Eight of the 18 laps Lowes completed this morning were in the 1:36 bracket and at the end of the session he was only six-thousandths-of-a-second outside of the top six.

Mindful of the fact that a rib injury prevented Lowes from participating in any race action at Estoril in 2025, he opted to spend the majority of his time on track in this afternoon’s Free Practice 2 working on race performance instead of pursuing outright fast lap.

Collecting important data in ambient temperatures that had risen to 25 degrees this afternoon, Lowes did an opening stint of 13 consecutive laps before allowing his crew to make up set-up tweaks ahead of a final run of five laps.

Lowes set his best time of the day on lap six of his distance run in the second session and his 1:36.184 placed him 14th on the combined leaderboard.

“I know the areas I need to improve” 

“I’m just getting back up to speed and I didn’t feel that comfortable on the bike today. I feel like we made a step at the end of the session in FP2, but I wasn’t able to show the pace fully, just didn’t put the laps together. 
I know the areas I need to improve and the team are working hard. I think we have a good direction so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”