Alex Lowes and his Bimota team have continued the upwards trajectory they left off with at the close of the 2025 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season, topping the second day of testing at Jerez. While they didn’t appear on Day one, the duo undertook a rigorous testing plan that saw them ride 149 laps cumulatively, more than any other rider pair. It wasn’t just quantity over quality, however as Lowes set the fastest lap of the day on his 45th lap of 76 on an SCQ tyre, and Bassani landed in P6. Now, riders will enjoy a break for the holiday season before returning to the track to keep taking steps in 2026.

AN IDEAL DAY IN JEREZ: “Conditions are cool, track’s grippy, so it’s hard to know, but I do believe we’ve made a couple of steps since the last race of 2025”

Among the items on their to-do list, Lowes worked on their chassis setup, new suspension components from manufacturer Showa, and a different swingarm configuration. With their rapid lap times, clearly something was working, and while Lowes was measured in his reaction to the day, cautious not to fall into a false sense of security that the cool weather and the absence of the formidable factory Ducati team could cause.

On his test plan, Lowes said: “It’s always pretty difficult to test here in the winter because the track’s quite grippy, the temperature’s cool, so you have to be really precise about what you’re testing because everything more or less feels quite good. My best lap was with the SCQ tyre; I did one lap with that in the middle of the day. We changed the chassis of the bike, setup-wise, quite a lot; a different swingarm than what we used during the season, different parts from Showa, and a different balance of the bike. We tried to see how it affected it. The balance was quite good. We started to work on a few other things. Electronics work, corner entry stuff, but it’s hard to really know, especially with not everyone here. Conditions are cool, track’s grippy, so it’s hard to know, but I do believe we’ve made a couple of steps since the last race of 2025. We’ll find out when we get going on different tracks, but I think we’ve definitely improved our package since the last round of 2025, and that’s all we can do. We’re happy with the work we’ve done.”

GETTING UP TO SPEED: “It was my first time working with my new crew chief, so we need a little bit of time to try to work in the perfect way”

Axel Bassani (bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team) showed glimpses of his speed in 2025 as he and his teammate took on the challenge of helping the Bimota factory team get back into the swing of WorldSBK competition. While it was Alex Lowes who featured in the team’s brightest moments in 2025, Bassani is eager to prove himself to the team and the paddock as a whole. Having made his debut at this test, ‘El Bocia’ will now have a wealth of experience brought by his new crew chief, Uri Pallares, who was previously working with Jonathan Rea.

On his new crew chief and his Jerez test in his eyes, Bassani said: “It was a bit of a difficult day because I’m a little bit sick. We did a lot of laps, and we tried a lot of things. It was my first time working with my new crew chief, so we need a little bit of time to try to work in the perfect way, but I’m happy. Uri’s a really good person and a professional. Slowly, we started to work and tried to understand without putting too much pressure on ourselves. In the end, the pace wasn’t bad. We were always three or four tenths behind Alex, but he was the best rider on track today. This is good for the team because it means the bike is working well. It’s only the first steps for us.”

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