Aragon WorldSBK Test: Progress for Lowes ‘but wasn’t fast enough’

KRT’s Alex Lowes completed WorldSBK preseason testing satisfied with his race pace but missing one-lap speed at Motorland Aragon.

Having finished Monday’s action fifth in the combined times, a more challenging day in terms of hot lap prowess found him struggling in 12th, 1.3s adrift of teammate Jonathan Rea with a 1’50.112 fastest effort as Tuesday drew to a close.

A late change in set-up, to make the most of this final preseason testing opportunity, failed to bear fruit, with the Brit looking ahead of Friday’s opening free practice of the 2022 FIM Superbike World Championship season to finish the work started with his Ninja ZX-10RR over the past two days.

“The test was okay but I wasn’t fast enough,” Lowes said simply on Tuesday evening. “We tried a few things with the bike in that last session today, in the good track temperatures. I tried something big and it didn’t really feel that good. Then we did not have enough time to change it back in the final session.

“We have a couple of days of practice now to put everything we have together. I guess track conditions will be a little bit different on Friday. I feel good in myself and I have had an issue-free preseason. The bike has been reliable and I have been solid, so the target for this year is to be consistent every weekend.

“My race pace is okay but over one lap I am not fast - so we need to understand that. Apart from that, it was not too bad and we have a couple of days to make a good plan to start free practice on Friday.”

“We used these two days quite well,” Marcel Duinker, crew chief for Lowes confirmed. “The first sessions on each day were very cold so we knew we were not going to learn anything. We didn’t go out on track except to make some practice starts. But