Yamaha’s Alex Lowes missed out on some vital setup time in the opening WorldSBK free practice at Laguna as he was sidelined with a ‘technical issue’ but says he needs to focus on corner exit in today’s third practice.

Lowes finished the first day less than a second off the pace but behind Ten Kate Yamaha’s Loris Baz. The Derby rider will spend time working on corner exit but also address some corner entry problems he is experiencing too.

“Today was pretty positive, despite losing quite a bit of track time this morning to a technical issue with the bike. This afternoon we didn’t push too hard but instead tried a few things on the bike that we didn’t get a chance to test this morning,” said Lowes.

“I feel good on the bike, even if we didn’t put our best set-up together today and, with my best lap coming after just five laps we haven’t really shown our true potential yet. Overall, it was a reasonable day, but we need to work a to find a better front feeling, so I can get the corners set up a little better tomorrow.

How you get out of the turns is key to a fast lap here, so that needs to be our focus in the final free practice session tomorrow.”

Lowes is only 12th through the speed trap - behind wildcard JD Beach on the Attack Yamaha - and some 12 km/h down on fastest man Bautista but Baz is even slower. The R1 is struggling in the final two sectors where there isn’t a single R1 in the top six split times.