Sam Lowes's (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) two seasons in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship paddock have been very different endeavours, and while there is plenty of racing yet to come, the #14’s 2025 campaign has already eclipsed what he was able to accomplish in his rookie season. A pole position, his first WorldSBK podium, and seven top five positions have been the fruits already after a rookie season in which the rider from Lincoln’s best result was a P6 at Assen.

FIGHTING BACK: “In the Tissot Superpole Race I had a nice result, but it was nice to come through and pass other riders”

His improvement across 2025’s pre-season into the first five races has been clear as day. Where Lowes in 2024 was often fighting to place between the top ten and P15, the Brit has become a battle-tested regular of the fight for the podium positions, frequently crossing sabres with riders like Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team), Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) and Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) near the front of the pack. Lowes has been pleased to see this growth and is excited to see where he and his team can go from here.

On his development, Lowes said: “I think overall my 2025 campaign is going a lot better than last year. We’ve been pretty consistent in that top six battle every weekend, and the Superpole speed and overall speed has improved a lot from last year. In such a tight Championship it’s obviously important to start near the front. It was really good to go to Australia and have a solid weekend, to get there and get the ball rolling. In the Tissot Superpole Race I had a nice result, but it was nice to come through and pass other riders; so not just the result, but the way we got the result was positive. It was something I really needed. Even in these races after I think it is still important to keep trying to build up my confidence to get some really nice results.”

ROOKIE LEARNINGS: “I learned so much about the Championship, the format of the race weekends, how to ride the bike…”

2024 was a tough rookie year for Lowes in WorldSBK. After his nine seasons in Moto2, there were many facets of the bike that were different to him, necessitating changes to his riding style. Further complicating the adaptation, he struggled to get back to 100% physically after repeated injuries not only led to him missing races but addled by injury when he was able to ride again.

“In my first season in WorldSBK I learned so much about the Championship, the format of the race weekends, how to ride the superbike – and probably how not to ride it as well,” joked Lowes. “The best moment for me, would probably be being competitive in Barcelona, qualifying well and leading a few laps. The worst moment would probably be the crash at Most last year and getting injured. I was already struggling a bit but that really set me back, and between that crash and earlier injuries in 2021 and 2022 with both my shoulders there were points like that it seemed that it would be the end of my career. Maybe I tried to come back too early, it’s hard as a rider to compete when you’re 80-85% healthy in this category and then I went and crashed on the same shoulder at Aragon. Sometimes I think in racing when you get on a bit of a bad wave it continues like that.”

 On what has made that difference in his mind to enable him to fight for the positions at the front, Lowes continued: “The biggest thing is, as always is confidence and my feeling on the bike is quite a lot different to last year. My position on the bike, my seating position, handlebars, I'm a lot more inside the bike now. For me it feels a lot more normal and ever since we've changed this, I've been able to improve my feeling, improve my confidence and build up. This year is more what I anticipated I could do in WorldSBK coming from some good years in in Moto2.”

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS: “I've been quite fast, so my goal is to fight for top 5 in the World Championship”

Lowes rode well at Phillip Island to start the season, grabbing P5 in the Tissot Superpole Race and P6 to close out the trip down under in Race 2. His P6 in the Superpole Race at Portimao turned more heads; however, it was his performance at the TT Circuit Assen which truly announced his presence in the 2025 WorldSBK paddock. He claimed a maiden pole in the Tissot Superpole session, his 1’32.596s lap topped the session and earned him P1 ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) who was 0.164s slower. He and Bautista were unable to score in Race 1 after their collision which was ruled a racing incident, however it was the Superpole Race where Lowes struck. The #14 started from pole however by Lap 1 had tumbled down to P8. Determined to recover, lap by lap Lowes climbed up the order up into P3 by Lap 5, only to see the deal get sweetened further by a Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) tech issue to retire from P1, bumping Lowes up to P2 for his first WorldSBK podium.

On his milestone weekend, Lowes said: “Assen was a full dry weekend, it was nothing strange, it was a proper pole position with a great lap time, so, I was really proud to do that. It's so important to start on the front two rows to be able to fight. If that's something that we've made a step forward, it's going to help our season. Starting from pole position in a wet race like that, I knew it was important to get a good start. I nearly got a too good start, arrived fast at Turn 1 and braked a bit late, causing me to go a bit deep and lose a fair few positions. Alex made some good overtakes and I managed to follow him through a couple of times so this this is nice to get the second place was a massive feeling. The team deserve it a lot after last year and this year, all the hard work they've done to give me an amazing package. Now we're sitting sixth in the Championship. I've been quite fast, so my goal is to fight for top five in the World Championship and aim to get some more podiums and try and win a race before the end of the year.”

Catch Sam Lowes in the next round of WorldSBK action at Misano this weekend June 13-15^th with the WorldSBK VideoPass! Now 30% off!