Lowes straight in the mix on day one in Aragón
Elf Marc VDS Racing Team star Sam Lowes picked up where he left off on the first day of running at the Motorland Aragón Circuit in Spain, and placed 3rd in the FP standings on Friday.
Fifth fastest in FP1 then third in FP2, Lowes has every right to feel a podium challenge is possible in Saturday’s Race 1 after a promising first day of running.
Conditions are expected to be cloudy and warm for tomorrow’s action at the 5.077km track, with Lowes in action for Superpole at 11am local time and Race 1 at 2pm.
/// SAM LOWES: 3rd, 1:48.997, 37 LAPS
Friday morning allowed Lowes to get back on the Motorland Aragón Circuit where he had recently tested his Elf Marc VDS Racing Team Ducati Panigale V4R.
He immediately found his rhythm. After 17 laps of running in FP1, Sam sat 5th thanks to his 1’49.425 time, which was 1.04s off Toprak Razgatlioglu’s fastest lap.
Track temperatures were a moderate 16 degrees for FP1. And they continued to rise for the afternoon FP2, with track temperatures clocking in at 36 when the 45-minutes session kicked off at 3pm.
The Briton used the afternoon to work on his race rhythm for Saturday. Having stopped to change his front tyre, Lowes put together a 14-lap run, with ten of those either in the 1’48s or mid-low 1’49s.
During that run, Sam posted his fastest time. With some improvements in Sector 3 of the Motorland Aragón Circuit, he is confident of challenging at the front tomorrow.
“We’ve done the work for the race and I think we can be in the podium fight”
“It was a decent first day. I’m happy with how the afternoon went. We had quite good pace in the longer run. I didn’t feel great with the softer front tyre so we came in to change that. Otherwise, it was positive. I’m struggling a bit in Sector 3. I need to try some things to improve through Turns 12 and 13. In 13 I’m not riding well, so it’s good to be fast and still have margin to improve. I’m missing a bit when compared with Toprak and (Nicolo) Bulega. They have good pace and Nicolo is particularly strong in Sector 4. It will be difficult to make up that gap to him. Anyway, I’m happy with the work we did today. I think I did 14 laps in a row. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow. It’ll be cooler in FP3 tomorrow. Qualifying will be important. And we’ve done the work for the race and I think we can be in the podium fight. It’ll be between me, (Danilo) Petrucci and Alvaro (Bautista). Alvaro will be strong at the end of the lap, as we know. They’ll be hard to beat in racing conditions, but if I can improve in Sector 3 and make another step in the pace then we should be OK. I’m only missing a couple of tenths, so I’m not too far away. Let’s keep going and see what we can do tomorrow.”