Alex Lowes (bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team) and his team have hit the ground running at MotorLand Aragon, setting the tone well as the British rider hopes to land his second podium of the season. Lowes’s strong results in Spain are in no small part a product of hard work in the prior week’s test event at Misano, which provided much-needed time on track and could spell a turning point for the #22’s season.
“It looked like we were a bit faster in the heat than in the cooler conditions”
Friday of the Aragon Round got rolling in morning’s Free Practice 1 session, where a relentless Spanish sun treated riders to a sweltering 40ºC (104ºF) track temperature even at the 10:35 local time start time. Despite the balmy conditions, Lowes finished third-fastest with a 1’49.442s time, clocking in the quickest of his 16 laps. While his pace was still half a second from the factory Ducati pair ahead of him, his teammate Axel Bassani’s 1’49.495s personal best on the session sent him immediately behind the Brit for P4, a testament to the Bimota’s progress from the test, particularly in the hot conditions.
Things only heated up as the day wore on, with tarmac temperatures climbing to 53ºC (127ºF). The afternoon’s FP2 saw only Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) and Jake Dixon (Honda HRC) improve their times from the day’s first session, and while the #22’s time was seven tenths slower, his focus on troubleshooting his riding position left him discarding an idea he and the team had initially tried at the Misano test
On the opening day of Aragon Round, Alex Lowes said: “It’s been a hot day at MotorLand Aragon, it’s a track that I enjoy, and I had some pretty good results here last year. I wasn’t expecting to be in the mix at the front with them today. This afternoon was really hot; the track temperature was in the mid-fifties. We did some long runs, and I tried something with my riding position. We tried it last week at the Misano test, but we ran out of time. I didn’t really like it, so I think I’ll go back to how I was riding before. It looked like we were a bit faster in the heat than in the cooler conditions. It was a good day, I enjoyed it.”
“I’d love to fight for a top five and be close to the podium”
The #22 is a 14-year veteran of WorldSBK – last round he passed Tom Sykes for third in all-time race starts, and he will have to bring all of that experience to bear as he hopes to outlast the competition in the stifling conditions on track. He’s earned a total of four podiums here at Aragon, one on a Yamaha and the other three on a Kawasaki. He took a trio of results all within the top six last season, but he urges moderation in the expectations for his results, seeing himself landing somewhere in the top five.
On his expectation for the rest of the weekend to come, Alex Lowes said: “It’s going to be a long race, 18 laps in this temperature is not going to be easy, but yeah, looking forward to it and I’m going to try to do the best I can. I’ll try to use my experience; the temperatures are very extreme. Realistically, I don’t know, I’ll try to do well in qualifying to get a good start and get as close as I can. I’d love to fight for a top five and be close to the podium, but it might be tough at this track; we’ll see tomorrow.”
Alex Lowes will return tomorrow to continue trying to advance the Bimota banner! Watch all the action on track with the WorldSBK VideoPass! Now 30% off!