Britain’s Sam Lowes picked himself up from a crash-strewn weekend to take victory in today’s Moto2 event at Austin’s MotoGP round, riding an intelligent race to beat Johann Zarco by a little over two seconds despite being in pain in the early laps.
The Derby-based Speed Up man took the lead from the Frenchman with six laps left and then banged in two fastest laps of the race to make a break and cross the line for his first-ever Moto2 victory and giving Britain its second win of the day after Danny Kent took the Moto3 laurels. The last time two Brits won on the same day was in 1977 at Anderstorp when Barry Sheene won the 500cc race and Mick Grant bagged the 250 trophy.
“It’s incredible. In the race the bike was no problem so there were no excuses. In the first two or three laps there was some pain but that went. The race was difficult because there was some rain but Johann set a good pace and I followed him and in the end I was able to do it,” said Lowes.
“I had tears in my eyes on the in lap. It means everything to me, especially coming off a really bad year last year. I felt like I could do it in Qatar but I made a silly mistake. I had a big crash this weekend but managed to put in a solid performance to show that I am not just fast and crash.”
Class rookie Alex Rins took the third podium spot and the series lead but Zarco and Xavier Simeon are under investigation for a collision with four laps left. The pair came together trying to occupy the same piece of tarmac on the run into turn four and Simeon fell off the side of his Federal Oil Gresini bike.
Reigning champion Tito Rabat emerged victorious after a dice with Franco Morbidelli to take fourth place and a decent points haul while Malaysian rider Hafizh Syahrin, who is a noted wet-weather man, took sixth.
Anthony West took his QMMF Speed Up to seventh ahead of Mika Kallio and Julian Simon on another Speed Up. Taakaki Nakagami completed the top ten.
