Elf Marc VDS’ Sam Lowes was chasing a third consecutive Moto2 win at Portimao on Sunday before a dramatic turn one highside brought the Brit crashing back to earth.

Things had looked to be going Lowes’ way once again after a steady weekend saw the 30 year-old celebrating his third pole of the season on Saturday. His commanding potential on used tyres was further confirmed ahead of race action when he set the third fastest time in morning warm-up but the dizzying heights were about to be thoroughly upset.

A poor start after launching from pole, saw Lowes sucked into the pack with the Kalex rider suffering a vicious highside at the first corner when trying to avoid colliding with the rear tyre of Remy Gardner. Uninjured, the frustrated Brit was forced to watch the battle play out from the sidelines before turning his thoughts directly to the next contest in Jerez in a fortnight’s time.

Gardner’s third place finish sees the Australian take charge of the championship standings with Lowes six points adrift, in third.

“Of course we’re disappointed to end the race like this” Lowes admitted from Portugal this afternoon. “I just got a terrible start and then down into turn one, as always, everyone was funnelling in. I got touched a bit and was going close to Remy so to avoid him I pulled the rear brake a lot and locked the rear. I was a little bit wide on the dusty part of the track and, because it was early in the race, tyre quite new, on the right, it just spat me real aggressive, there was no way to save it and no real warning really.

“It’s not good because we had the pace to fight for the victory again. It was a mistake and we can learn from it. Quite a big crash, I’ve hurt my leg a bit but nothing to moan about and I’m sure it’ll be okay in a few days. Just a bit of an impact, I went quite high but no real issues.

“Obviously, this season has been going really well so far and this weekend we were really fast again. The crash is just something that can happen in racing but still the championship is close, we’ve been fast here and we can take the positives onto Jerez.

“Honestly if things are going, I won’t say too good, but when things are going like that, is normal that something happens to keep your feet on the ground. We’re six points behind, it’s a very long season, we’ve been fast at another circuit and we can just look in a positive way. I want to thank the team for a good job this weekend and we’ll be back stronger in Jerez, which is a circuit that we’ve tested at and one which I really enjoy. We’ve had really good pace so it should be a nice event.”