Alex Lowes searching for front end improvements at WorldSBK Portimao test

This weekend’s World Superbike test in Portimao offers opportunities for those in attendance to confirm things left over not only from the first round of the 2025 season in Australia, but also from the winter tests, which were hit by bad weather.

For Bimota’s Alex Lowes, this means a focus on front end confidence, which he is hopeful the layout of the circuit at Portimao will allow him to work on.

“Portimao is a different challenge to Phillip Island,” Lowes said ahead of the test. “I am hoping to improve my front end confidence on the bike to be more aggressive under braking. That should allow me to race with the other bikes a bit more easily.

“This is my main focus for this Portimao test, and to enjoy being back with my ‘Team 22’ colleagues.”

For Axel Bassani, who recently passed his road licence test, the Portimao test will be a chance to improve on some of the areas that Phillip Island exposed as the bike’s weak points.

“It will be a really important test because soon after we will have a race weekend there,” he said.

“We have to try to find our best race setup. For sure, that will not be easy as Portimao is a very difficult track, but we have already had one day of testing there and we will not be starting this next test from zero.

“This is very important because all the tracks will be new for us when we go to race.

“We will have some new things to try but not a lot of new items. We have to improve in a lot of points, especially on the rear for me.

“After Phillip Island we realised that the base is not bad because we were really near to the first positions.

“We know that one of our issues is the speed on the straight, so we have to focus a lot where we can improve and not think too much about that. We will try in some more areas to be near to the first riders.”