A few events ago it looked like Alex Lowes may be left out in the 2019 season cold in the WorldSBK paddock, as far as the best teams and machines were concerned. That would have been an unfair outcome for the former BSB champion, especially now he is a much more rounded package than he was in the first couple of years of his WorldSBK career.

In race one at Laguna Seca, he was a paragon of controlled pace, and with that all important first race win in his packet after the most recent round in Brno.

Never quite on the pace of Rea and pole man Davies in real race conditions in America, Lowes’s pragmatic pleasure at his third place finish – the tenth of his career – was evident in his calm summation of his race.

“That feels like a good result,” he said. “I am surprised, really, that I had the pace. I was strong at the start and then the second half of the race was just trying to stay there. I think Tom had a problem that helped us today and Marco messed up his qualifying – he messed it up himself – and I have just been solid all weekend and took advantage the best I could. We have not got the pace of the other guys so we need to make sure we race well and put ourselves in position, which that is what we did.”

Riding Laguna on your own can be tricky and mentally tiring, with nowhere to have ‘a rest’, but Lowes had his own race under control even if he could do nothing about Rea and Davies.

“As long as I had more than two second behind me I was just trying to ride to a rhythm,” said Lowes. “If it got under two second I was going to try to push a bit more but it didn’t really, so I was just almost riding round in the last ten laps just to be safe. I think everybody was struggling with the tyres, so I did not need to risk anything silly. I will try something different for tomorrow. It was the first time I had raced the soft tyre all year, but it felt quite good in the practices. It was a good solid ride.”

Fatigue played no part for Lowes in race one, despite hefty temperatures approaching 30°C. But recent set-up changes and new electronics strategies have still made part two of any contest relatively tricky for Lowes.
“I still feel uncomfortable with the bike in the second half of the race,” said Lowes.

“I have felt a lot more competitive this year and I am a lot faster, but in the second part of the race I am not as strong as I was last year. These electronic changes we have made I cannot get the same feeling of confidence when the grip drops. This is an area I still need to work on and I still feel like I am not riding at my best but we are riding in a good way and working in a good way with my team, which is what’s allowing the results to be so strong.”

Lowes felt good in his overall fitness, even in the crucible of the hot dry lake bed, and that was actually helped by the reduction of tyre grip in the second half of the 25-lap race.

“Physically I feel OK because the pace dropped a little bit,” said Lowes. “So when the pace drops, although the tyres are sliding it is not as physical. One of my strong points is being consistent, being able to pump out the lap time. In that race the second part was just about doing that.

It felt like a long race for me because I had a gap quite early after Tom had his problem. I was never going to catch the guys in front but when you are in third position it can be as long as it wants! I quite enjoyed it.”