main content of page
Racing News |
KRT RIDER ALEX LOWES DOES THE DOUBLE AT WORLD SUPERBIKE SEASON OPENER
Alex Lowes earned a superb race win in the ten lap WorldSBK Superpole Race at Phillip Island and followed it up with a second victory on the Ninja ZX-10RR in a shortened Race Two. His KRT team-mate Axel Bassani scored points in each Sunday race, finishing 11th each time.
A spectacular first round of the season for KRT ended with not only two race wins for Lowes but the overall championship lead for the experienced British rider.
The Superpole race started with Lowes on the front row again after finishing third in Superpole qualifying. He made the most of his leading position to stay in podium contention in the early laps. Alex would take the lead and then set his own pace as the battle for the other podium fights took place just far enough behind to allow Lowes to control the race in the final three laps.
It was Alex’s first race win for Kawasaki since he first joined KRT in 2020, when he secured Race Two at Phillip Island during his debut weekend in green.
Given his Superpole Race success Lowes had high hopes of another podium finish in what was scheduled to be a 20-lap Race Two - albeit split into two halves by regulation and with a mandatory tyre change stop. After a major oil leak from one of the support class machines led to a reduction of grip in T2 and T3 a long track clean-up protocol took place. This caused a severe delay to both WorldSSP and WorldSBK races and reduced the final WorldSBK race to an 11 lap ‘sprint’ - albeit for full points.
A tense high speed battle ensued for Lowes behind the long time leader Alvaro Bautista. When Andrea Locatelli crashed in Turn Four near the end, Lowes knew he could pass Bautista before the flag, given his better tire grip. Alex timed his pass around the outside to perfection and kept Bautista behind him across the line to record a margin of victory of 0.048 seconds.
Bassani was 11th in the Superpole Race after starting from 11th place on the grid. In Race Two he was on course to finish inside the top eight places until another rider interrupted his line and Axel dropped back to finish in 11th place. This is Axel’s first race weekend with the KRT squad and he leaves Phillip Island in 14th position in the early championship fight.
With two full points scores on Sunday added to his fourth place finish from Race One on Saturday Alex has 50 championship points, nine more than the next best rider.
After a truly remarkable opening round in many regards the next competitive action for the KRT duo will be close to their team’s home base at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya March 22-24. A major WorldSBK test session will be held at the same venue before race weekend March 14-15.
