RiderTua.com – Alex Lowes enters the second race weekend in Catalunya as the World Superbike Championship standings leader. In the season-opening series at Phillip Island, the Kawasaki rider won the second race with a spectacular overtaking maneuver. However, the first race in Catalonia showed that Alex would have difficulty maintaining his lead in the standings.
In Superpole, Alex Lowes finished 7th on the grid and was 1 of 10 drivers to beat the previous lap record. He set consistent times throughout the race, able to conserve his tyres, while the others struggled to overcome tire wear in the second half of the race. As a result, he was able to overtake Danilo Petrucci (Ducati) and Michael van der Mark (BMW) from 8th position to 6th position.
Why Alex Lowes struggling in Catalonia?
Even though he was only able to finish 6th in the first race in Barcelona, Alex Lowes was quite satisfied with the result. “It was a solid day for us. We already knew from the last test and free practice session that we would have more problems here. The small grip and long corners made it difficult for us. But we did well,” explained twin brother Sam Lowes. (Ducati) that.
Then Lowes revealed that his pace was fine and he had time to make progress. The rider from England was able to finish in the top 6 and will see what is still possible. “It would be better if we could fight for the podium on Sunday, after all this is my team’s home race,” said Lowes.
For information, the Kawasaki factory team is based in Granollers, neighboring the city of Montmelo where the race track is located.
In the end Lowes (60 points) had to surrender his lead in the standings to Nicolo Bulega (Ducati), who finished in 2nd place behind winner Toprak Razgatlioglu (BMW), with only 1 point difference (61 points). At least on Kawasaki, he was clearly number 1 because his teammate Axel Bassani finished in 10th position in the first race, Puccetti team rider Tito Rabat crossed the finish line in last position.
