Day two in the Emilia Romagna WorldSBK round at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli was a bittersweet affair for the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team and Sam Lowes. 

The Saturday action in round seven could not have started better for the Briton, who powered to the fastest time in FP3 before falls in Superpole and Race 1 ended a promising day that left Lowes contemplating what might have been.

Lowes is now determined to make amends tomorrow, with the Superpole Race underway at 11am local time and Race 2 scheduled to start at 2pm.

^{// SAM LOWES: Superpole: 10th. Race 1: DNF}

The second day in San Marino got off to a blistering start for Lowes, who topped the FP3 timesheets with a stunning 1:31.929, which was only 0.3s away from the Misano all-time lap record and one second faster than his best pace set on Friday.

Knowing a return to the 1:31s in the Superpole session would give him a great chance to secure a front row slot for the fourth time in 2026, Lowes was in full attack mode when his hopes were unfortunately ended by a fast front-end crash in turn 13.

Lowes escaped injury in the spill and found himself lining up for the 21-lap Race 1 on the fourth row of the grid in 10th position before he launched a sensational charge through the pack.

Early aggression saw Lowes quickly through on Andrea Locatelli and Alberto Surra before an error by Lorenzo Baldassarri at turn five on lap five bumped him up the order into P6.

Lowes then immediately set about the task of hunting down twin brother Alex and Axel Bassani ahead of him in the scrap for fourth before he also tucked the front of his Ducati Panigale V4R machine in the tight turn five right-hander on lap six.

“I’ll try to improve for tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry for the team because today’s been a tough day. I had a good FP3 and was fast on used tyres, but then in qualifying I made a mistake on the first tyre, which is a shame because I didn’t get a ‘banker’ in. In the race I was feeling OK, the first couple of laps were quite fast and then I lost the front. I didn’t have much warning and it was tough conditions, but it’s the same for everybody and I’ll try to improve for tomorrow.”