WorldSBK Assen: Frustrated Lowes ‘my pace was better’

For a rider of Alex Lowes’s experience, and being a equipped with a KRT Kawasaki like six times champion Jonathan Rea, a fourth place finish in WorldSBK race two at Assen was hardly the stuff of dreams.

But in another way it was, given that he had two DNFs from the opening races. A stone thrown up by another rider’s rear tyre broke his oil cooler on Saturday. Then an unspecified technical issue in Sunday’s sprint deprived him of a strong finish.

So fourth in race two was something of a salvation job for a rider who was blameless in the first two no-scores.

“Yeah, I was pleased with myself during the weekend, but my pace was better than that.” Lowes said about the final action. “I shouldn’t have been in that position unfortunately, when Jonathan and Toprak went out. I think I should have been able to get on the podium. I didn’t feel as good as I expected in that race. If you look, starting from the fourth row to get fourth is not too bad. I don’t know if it was the lack of experience of yesterday’s race, the last part of the race I didn’t feel that good today. When Redding and Bassani were battling, I had to have a few laps trying to save the tyres and to try and go fast at the end because the rear was spinning a lot more than I anticipated. So, it was an okay end to the weekend. I feel like I’ve been a lot better this weekend, and the results showed. You always leave a bit frustrated.”

Lowes had no idea if his tech issue in the Superpole race was as a result of his first day broken oil cooler. “Don’t know,” he said. “Do you know what, it’s hard sometimes, because obviously the first race, the crash in Aragon, trying to stay with the front guys, was a shame. But then this weekend, you did nothing wrong and you end up with