Alex Lowes<\/a> told Crash.net in an interview at Motorcycle Live.<\/p>\n\u201cI think it was one of my best years, 2024. It was fourth in the championship, but I had 12 or 13 podiums, I was fast everywhere, more or less.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bike didn\u2019t change much, but I managed to get some more performance out of the bike. So, I was enjoying it a lot, so to change from that \u2013 of course, you\u2019re nervous.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t like change too much as riders because you\u2019re panicking about not being competitive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, on the other side, to be part of the project from the start, and to start to do well, that was quite rewarding as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think it took a bit of time to adjust.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked the green, I really liked the colours last year, which doesn\u2019t mean anything but I did enjoy 2024!\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowes was pleased with his 2025 in general, but was frustrated with one race in particular: the Portuguese Round.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a really good year apart from two races,\u201d Lowes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDonington I\u2019m not as annoyed with because I felt really good that weekend, I was pushing too hard but I was quite confident, home race, made a mistake and then couldn\u2019t ride the Sunday because I was injured.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cBut Portimao was a shame because I had the yellow flag in qualifying, so I went from fourth to last on the grid, and I didn\u2019t handle that well.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained: \u201cPhillip Island was a bit of a disappointment after last year, so then second round at Portimao I felt quite good on the bike and I was trying to, let\u2019s say, prove the project, almost, looking back then.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, rather, than just accept that the weekend was going to be tough after qualifying, I\u2019ve thought about having a good weekend from the back of the grid. So, the first race I got up to eighth, crashed; then the Superpole Race, hard to come through in 10 laps; and then the last race, crashing again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, those two rounds, if I take those out, it was a good year. But Portimao was not good.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Hungary, the whole second part of the year was good, especially long races: top-six every race. I think for the first year on the bike it was a solid effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
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If Donington had been without the crash in Race 1, it might\u2019ve been the highlight of Lowes\u2019 season. In reality, his triple podium at Magny-Cours takes that title, those results coming as Lowes became more comfortable on the KB998 after having one of the best seasons of his career aboard the Kawasaki ZX-10RR in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say I was riding well in the second half of [2025],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just have to ride the bike a little bit\u2013 not smoother, that\u2019s not the right word, but softer in certain ways you force the bike. I understand it a lot more now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFour or five years on the Kawasaki, you get into habits of the Kawasaki without even realising, sort of subconscious.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, that took some time to change, but now I\u2019m really enjoying the bike, it\u2019s a pleasure to ride, we just need to keep working for some more performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
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If there\u2019s an area the Bimota clearly needs work in terms of performance it\u2019s in a straight line. The Kawasaki engine combined with the comparatively radical aerodynamics of the KB998 versus those of the ZX10-RR (which, it should be noted, has a new fairing for 2026), resulted in WorldSBK\u2019s newest bike being one of the slowest in the speed traps in 2025.<\/p>\n
But without a dramatic change in the production engine, there\u2019s little the race team can do to address the bike\u2019s horsepower deficit compared to bikes like the Honda, BMW, and Ducati.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lowes, though, says the team has not been without ideas for how to improve the performance of the bike in the second season.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike always, we can improve in many areas,\u201d he said. \u201cMe riding the bike, for one \u2013 but electronics, a little bit with the chassis on the bike.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t make too many changes during the year [….] \u2013 in the rules, you\u2019re allowed one or two upgrades.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cSo, already after the last race, we had some ideas of where we were struggling, and trying to make some steps from that side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the engine side, work in progress. Obviously, it\u2019s a production-based championship so you\u2019re limited in what you can do, but we\u2019ll try and make some small steps everywhere, we\u2019re not miles away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, going back to the same tracks, we should be in a stronger position.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOther people are obviously improving as well, so it never gets easier, but hopefully we can make some steps forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
BSB \u201cadvice\u201d<\/p>\n
When the FS-3 BSB<\/a> team announced towards the end of the 2025 season that it was trading its ZX-10RRs for two KB998s for the 2026 season, the announcement came along with the information that the team would be working collaboratively with the WorldSBK team next year to help develop the project, and that Lowes was one link in that chain, thanks in part also to his previous work with FS-3\u2019s chief engineer, Ian Prestwood, when he won his BSB title in 2013.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
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Speaking at Motorcycle Live, Lowes said that his role in this aspect is \u201cjust giving some advice\u201d, but he does think the Bimota will be a bike that suits the tracks in the British Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really helping too much, just giving some advice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019ll be a good bike, good chassis for the BSB tracks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of young riders [Max Cook, Joe Talbot] on the bike that are hungry, I think that\u2019s great for the team, and I think the more we \u2013 my job as a Bimota rider \u2013 can grow the brand, grow the project, let people see the bike, the better, because I think it\u2019s a great bike and I hope they enjoy it as much as I do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The switch from Kawasaki to Bimota was not one that Alex Lowes was entirely sure about initially, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[147806,64,63,120860,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-372487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alex-lowes","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bimota-by-kawasaki-racing-team","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}