Moto2: Lowes starting fresh in Europe

Sam Lowes says that this weekend’s Moto2 race at Jerez was a success for him, despite the former championship contender coming home in a lowly eighth place. Struggling to find his form in the opening three races of the season on his return to the middleweight class though, he told MCN after the race that the race shows that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

 “It wasn’t what I expected and the pace wasn’t what I thought I could do. But I was nervous, because I knew I had to finish the race. Jerez in hot conditions isn’t the easiest place to finish a race, so I played it safe. The first three races could have gone better, and Sunday’s race was a result of that because if I’d had a good result here maybe I could have pushed harder and rode around the lack of confidence in the front I have.

“It didn’t feel like we had any momentum until now, so hopefully we can take this forward to Le Mans. The other guys have confidence levels near where mine used to be, and I just need to get back to there. I’ve got it in practice when it doesn’t mean as much, and sometimes recently I’ve made no mistakes all weekend then crashed in the race. I’m still riding tight on the bike, and I need some results to be able to push. It’s all in my head, but after last year it’s not going to come overnight.”

It was a more disappointing end to the day for fellow Brit Danny Kent, suffering with gearbox problems from the off and admitting that it was a distraction he didn’t need that lost his focus and caused him to fall from the fight for a top ten.

“The team changed the clutch on Saturday night and there were already problems in warm-up with it. They could see it on the data but couldn’t find anything wrong with the clutch, but in the race I was still having to put more force through the lever to change gears.

“I was thinking about that and not the corner, everything is coming at you so fast, and to do that for 23 laps in that heat when the front is trying to close anyway was impossible. It’s frustrating because I felt good all weekend and I would have had better pace towards the end of the race. Fabio had a good race in the top ten and I was a little stronger than him all weekend, which adds another frustration.”