Easy come, easy go: Sam Lowes’ (Ducati) podium and crash

When Yari Montella crashed in the first Superbike race at Cremona and Sam Lowes finished third, third place in the World Championship was once again within the Englishman’s reach. On Sunday, however, the situation was reversed.

Kay Hettich

WorldSBK

01.10.2026 - 11:33

This article is an automatically generated English version. The Original Article was published in German.

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Sam Lowes

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In the first third of the 2026 Superbike World Championship season, Sam Lowes was clearly on course, but with two rounds still to go, the Marc VDS rider has seen third place in the championship slip through his fingers. In Cremona, the Englishman missed what was likely his last chance to turn things round.

When Yari Montella crashed in the first race, Lowes held off his Ducati team-mate Lorenz Baldassarri to finish third on the podium for the ninth time this year. He was still 33 points behind the Barni rider, but the Italian had already pulled 49 points clear of him earlier!

“I struggled a bit to find a fast rhythm at the start of the race, but then I maintained my pace well right until the end. I gave it my all and really pushed hard to secure this podium finish,” said the 36-year-old.

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Sam Lowes

Fifth place in the Superpole Race behind Montella wasn’t the end of the world, but whilst the 26-year-old shone in the second race, finishing third after 23 laps, Lowes had already parked his V4R in the gravel – he came off second best in a battle with his twin brother Alex.

“There’s not really much to say about that,” grumbled the Ducati rider. “The Superpole Race was, as always, a tough battle – I was at the back of a group, and because overtaking is difficult on this track, I just wanted to finish the race well to secure a good starting position for Race 2. In Race 2, I didn’t have a good feel for the bike at the start; in the first few laps I had a bit of trouble with front-wheel grip. I made a couple of mistakes, then worked my way up the field and tried to find my rhythm, and whilst overtaking Alex I made a mistake. I handled it a bit wrong, went too far inside and crashed – a minor rookie error, you might say.”

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To make matters worse, Sam has also slipped back to fifth place in the overall standings, behind Alex on the Bimota KB998. The duel between the twins will continue at Estoril and Jerez, but it looks as though they’ll now only be battling it out for fourth place in the World Championship.

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