Lowes hopeful Yamaha can close the gap at Donington Park

Alex Lowes is confident Pata Yamaha can shrink the performance gap back down on its front-running rivals in World Superbikes at Donington Park with the track playing to the YZF-R1’s strengths.

The British rider secured his first podium with Pata Yamaha 12 months ago at his home round while he also clinched his second career rostrum in the World Superbike championship at his home track back in 2014 with Suzuki.

Lowes says he’s held faith in Yamaha’s pace at recent rounds despite not having the results to reflect it - the former BSB champion secured pole position at Assen before tyre issues wrecked his races while he battled to a pair of top tens at Imola - and is optimistic for a fightback at Donington Park.

“It’s been good to us in the past,” Lowes said. “Behind the scenes at Imola it was a tough weekend with a few things that seemed to be difficult but in the second race I had really good pace at a track which is probably our worst in terms of pace. This track has been pretty good to us with the Yamaha so there is no reason why we can’t expect to be at the front.

“We’re getting better all the time but the goalposts are moving, as they always are. They changed the rules at the start of the year which was aimed at tightening it up a bit but as you can see teams that make the most of the rules the gap can appear again.

“I’m hoping that this weekend we can be back in a good position. In Aragon and Thailand we’ve been challenging with the Kawasaki but whereas at Imola if you were not on a Kawasaki or Ducati it felt like you were at a different race.”