Alex Lowes (Bimota) on the retirement in the sprint: "The engine just stopped"

Third in Superpole and 5th and 4th in the long races, Alex Lowes had a good Superbike weekend in Misano. However, his retirement in the Superpole race with a technical problem was bitter - and that at Bimota's home race!

Lowes had opted for the particularly soft qualifying tyre in the sprint race over just ten laps and was confident of achieving another strong result. "A solid day in itself, only the morning was obviously bitter. I felt good on the bike - the balance was better with the SCQ. In the end, the engine just stopped and that was it for me," said the 35-year-old in an interview with SPEEDWEEK.com.

Without a finish, Lowes dropped back to tenth position on the grid for the second race. With a lightning start, the Bimota rider catapulted himself straight into the leading group and came out of the first lap in fourth place. "My start was good, but I voluntarily gave up a position when Loka passed Montella. The contact was okay for me, but I would probably have been penalised. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of time, which was a shame," explained the father of a family. "In the heat, I got into trouble on the brakes later on. We had changed something and the bike behaved differently than before. I got track limit warnings in the middle of the race and had to ride a bit more conservatively. In the end, it was an excellent result for us in these hot conditions. Unfortunately, Axel crashed in the fight for a podium place, but we were operating at the limit here."

Willkommen zum Rennwochenende in Misano, Nicolò Bulega

Foto: Gold & Goose

Paddock

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Kawasaki Motorhome

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Álvaro Bautista

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Axel Bassani

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Iker Lecuona & Nicolò Bulega

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Das Bike von Sam Lowes

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Iker Lecuona

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Lorenzo Baldassarri

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Álvaro Bautista

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Andrea Locatelli

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Nicolò Bulega

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Michael van der Mark

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Yari Montella

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Sam Lowes

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Somkiat Chantra

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Ryan Vickers

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Michael van der Mark

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Garrett Gerloff

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Alex Lowes

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Iker Lecuona

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Xavi Vierge

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Garrett Gerloff

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Alex Lowes

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Nicolò Bulega

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Yari Montella

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Iker Lecuona

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Nicolò Bulega

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Superpole - Iker Lecuona, Nicolò Bulega & Alex Lowes

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Rennen - Iker Lecuona, Nicolò Bulega & Yari Montella

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Sieger Nicolò Bulega

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Willkommen zum Rennwochenende in Misano, Nicolò Bulega

© Gold & Goose

Under the Bimota flag, Misano was a home race for Lowes and his Spanish team. "We realised that, there was a lot going on! But I thought it was nice to have a lot of people from the factory here with their families and to feel the support," said the Englishman, praising the support. "It's all the more regrettable that we didn't make it onto the podium. It's a bit frustrating, but we had a solid weekend and enjoyed ourselves."

In its second year with the KB998, Bimota had set its sights on better results, but Ducati is miles ahead of all the manufacturers this year with the new V4R. "At the last few meetings, we have performed consistently in terms of the gap to the top. We are always around twelve to 19 seconds behind, depending on how the weekend goes or whether mistakes happen. We have to be there when the opportunity arises," explained Lowes. "Basically, it was the same here as in Aragón. As a team, we can't do anything right now but get the maximum out of our package and I think we've done that."