Voltcom Crescent Suzuki’s Alex Lowes scored a stellar sixth place finish for the opening race of the World Superbike weekend at Laguna Seca in America on Sunday.

A great start off the lights saw the British racer sitting sixth on his Yoshimura-powered GSX-R for the initial three laps of the morning’s action before a small error dropped him back slightly to eighth. Digging deep for the mid-race, Lowes increased his pace to take seventh from World Champion Sylvain Guintoli on lap 17.  Lowes then closed the gap on Leon Haslam, pressing the Aprilia rider into an error and claiming sixth and 10 points at the flag.

Race two looked to be an equally strong performance for Lowes as he held seventh on lap one after another good start. However it wasn’t to be, as an issue with a punctured front tyre and an early incident on lap two brought about his eventual retirement on lap nine. Lowes leaves America 10th in the standings with 94 championship points and ready for two races in the far-east in the coming weeks.

Recovering his weekend’s early form, Randy de Puniet took his Suzuki GSX-R1000 from 17th on the grid to a double 11th place finish for the day’s two races. Battling hard just outside of a top ten position, the Frenchman collects 10 points from his American visit and is looking forward to continuing the developments made.

As the freight is packed up to travel directly to Malaysia, Voltcom Crescent Suzuki now prepare to journey east for round ten at the Sepang International Circuit on Sunday 2nd August, while Alex Lowes flies first to Japan for the Suzuka 8Hours endurance race next week.

Alex Lowes: “I felt good in race one. I made a small mistake in the first turn, but I recovered from that and it was great to race, catch and pass Sylvain and close down on Leon on the factory Aprilia. The bike felt much better than it has done recently and we made good progress over the course of the weekend. The second race I was fully fired up for a good fight to try and get involved at the front but immediately on the first lap it felt like I had a front puncture, the bike was folding everywhere and I had no choice but to come into the pit. The bike itself felt perfect, the same as race one, but we will have to investigate the situation with the tyre. Because it was spitting with rain and the race was effectively over having come in, we threw wet tyres on just in case the rain got heavy which would have allowed us to get back involved. Unfortunately the rain didn’t come, I was out for a few laps but it was clear there was nothing more to be gained. A disappointing end to a really good weekend but the first race has set me up well for the 8Hour next week and I will be coming back to WSBK in Sepang knowing that we can fight with the group.”

Randy de Puniet: “Two 11th places, so it’s better than the previous races, but I am a little disappointed because we started the weekend very well. I crashed in FP4 when I had a very good pace and qualified 17th on the grid. To start on the sixth row here is not so easy and the feeling was not quite as it was before the crash so I tried to manage as best I could. We made some small adjustments between the two races but it was not enough. I also struggled a little for the second half of race two with the brake, race one was ok, but race two was not as easy, so we will look to improve this and a little more with the chassis for a better corner-entry feeling. Now with this base we can look to improve further at Malaysia. It’s a track I know well and enjoy, after my time in MotoGP™, so I can get into the rhythm quickly and look to have a better feeling with the GSX-R.”