Sam Lowes picks out Donington area where he’s “terrible” despite “positive” UK WorldSBK Friday

Sam Lowes says he is “terrible” in sector one at Donington but was pleased with his Friday a the UK WorldSBK overall, finishing third-fastest in FP2.

For the British rider, it was important to understand his front tyre choice on Friday, with track temperatures up above 40C, having felt he made the wrong one when it was hot at the Misano World Superbike round. 

“I’m not really complaining about the weather, obviously, we’re happy about it,” Lowes said after practice at Donington.

“It’s probably the hottest day today. It was important for me after Misano, struggling a little bit with the heat.

“I went with the SC2 front [tyre] in Misano so definitely [didn’t] do that today, just focused on the soft [compound] front just trying to understand the feeling. If tomorrow’s good I’ll still use the soft front, and if it’s not good I’ve got somewhere to go for Sunday.

“It was a positive day, really enjoyed it. Last year was a bit of a baptism of fire, really, obviously home race and a track that I did good at many years ago. But 2013 to last year was a long time, so last year I didn’t have everything under control here.

“It was nice to go out today, this afternoon I had a good rhythm, a strong rhythm, and it was a positive day.”

Lowes added that he is strong in the second half of the lap he is good, but he is struggling in the first sector.

“Obviously the Ducati is so good on acceleration, good for stopping, so the last sector was strong,” he said.

“Sector three I’m quite good.

“Sector one I don’t know what I’m doing, there must be a long lap or something because I’m terrible in sector one! I was terrible last year in sector one.

“So, I need to look back to see if I also used to be terrible in sector one. I don’t know, but I need to figure that out.

“Obviously, the good thing with the team, with Ducati, I can have a look tonight and see what I’m doing wrong and try to improve that bit.

“It’s only a small sector, but definitely missing something there. So, that’s a good area to improve.”

On his sector one difficulties, he added: “I guess it’s a ‘Sam Lowes being a bit trigger-happy on change of direction’ thing, more than the bike.

“We changed the bike quite a lot, went quite a lot shorter for the afternoon. We’re just not used to these track temperatures here. We didn’t have much grip.

“This afternoon, 11mm shorter which is quite a big change for us and was a big difference. I think we can still fine tune a bit, loads of little bits.

“But it was good to get the two runs in this afternoon, quite consistent laps, so we’ve got some good data to work on.”

There was also one specific corner where Lowes was struggling on the Ducati: turn nine, the first part of the Foggy Esses, where Nicolo Bulega crashed in FP2.

“I’m third gear in the esses and it’s a little bit low in the RPM and if I don’t get the braking it’s hard work,” he said.

“It’s another thing I want to check tonight because for 23 laps it’s going to be [difficult].

“When you don’t have the RPM to stop and you miss the braking a bit, it all happens quite fast. Bulega went down there, he’s using third as well.

“So, I need to have a look at that tonight.”