Leading the WorldSBK championship arriving in Spain, Alex Lowes had some pressure on his shoulders, not matched by his personal experience of his new-for-2020 Kawasaki.

The result was a tough weekend compared to the opener in Phillip Island all those months ago, but one in which he got gradually better and found some answers to the questions that high track temperatures posed.

“It has not been an easy weekend for me but in the end we took some points so it was not bad,” said Lowes, who had an even tougher Jerez last year, including his infamous clash with his new team mate Jonathan Rea.

“This weekend was quite difficult because this is the first time for me to ride the Kawasaki in these extreme temperatures,” said Alex. “Yesterday I did not understand anything, I had no confidence and just tried to take some points. But every race I have improved and was not too bad today. I am looking forward to Portimao already.”

For Lowes the most pleasing aspect of a tough weekend was that he improved in each race – ninth to seventh to fifth.

“In the Superpole race it was good because I started 14th, so to arrive in P7 I had quite a lot of confidence for the final race. It looks like compared to some of our rivals we lack a little bit of speed. We have to try to improve for next week.”

His opening day problem was finally worked out as a wrong tyre option more than anything else.

“I chose the wrong tyre in the front of the bike yesterday,” said Lowes. “I did not have so much experience with this bike and my previous bike in the hot conditions I always used the SC2, the harder front tyre. I tried to make it work with the Kawasaki but it did not work, so today I went back and I was more competitive. Honestly today I was competitive and it is a shame we ran out of time.”

On what was clearly a tough weekend for the Kawasaki riders in general, despite Rea’s Superpole race win in the morning, Lowes once again beat his new team-mate in a real long race.

I was stronger today and also my pace today compared to the guys’ pace yesterday was strong. I was a bit behind in track time. I made some mistakes yesterday, with the tyre and stuff like this.

"I have to be calm, use the support of the team, and every race I improved. For me this was a successful race and in both races today I did a really good job and gives me confidence for Portimao – although obviously the result was not what I wanted it to be.

"But honestly, there was not much more I could do. I did not understand enough about the bike. Johnny has five years experience with the bike. In the hotter conditions it was difficult for him also. I have to just learn from what happened and use this information for next time.”