Alex Lowes “gathered good confidence” despite “unfortunate” WorldSBK test

Bimota’s Alex Lowes finished fastest in yet another weather-disrupted WorldSBK test at Portimao this week.

The British rider was the only one to get into the 1m40s bracket during the opening day of the test. Rain arrived on Monday afternoon and lasted long enough to mean there was almost no running on Tuesday, conditions that prevented much mileage from being completed.

But Lowes says he was still able to find “some good confidence” in his riding in the laps he was able to complete.

“I felt good today [Monday] on the bike,” Alex Lowes told WorldSBK.com after the first day – which turned out to be the only meaningful day – of the test.

“Obviously, it’s nice to get back to Europe after Australia. In Australia, we were quite strong and quite quick in the dry, and here we continued our work in the winter. 

“The feeling on the bike is positive; we gathered some good confidence here today.”

Although the rain most substantially affected Tuesday, the afternoon on Monday was also affected. Lowes expressed some frustration at this, especially as it follows a European testing campaign that was also heavily affected by rain.

“The conditions were unfortunate, we had just started to try some things on the bike, and then it started raining,” Lowes said.

“So we only did 30 laps and didn’t get a chance to really test things. I’m really happy to be back on the bike, though; we hadn’t ridden here in a year, since the race last year, so it’s been nice to see the evolution of our KB998 Rimini.”

Bassani: “A lot” of electronics work

The conditions that frustrated Lowes frustrated everyone else, too, of course. His Bimota teammate, Axel Bassani, is included in that group, but the Italian says that he was able to work on his setup for the Portimao World Superbike round on 27–29 March.

“On day one we did about 29–30 laps and we tried some things in dry conditions,” Bassani said.

“We worked a little bit on the set-up for the race and a lot on the electronics side. Then we had some bad weather. 

“This year we have been really unlucky with the weather and only the two days in Australia were really good. It has been the same for everyone, but in general it is not the best for the riders. 

“We need more time to work on the bike and feel good. So, we have to keep working, stay positive and we will see how it goes in the next days.”