The stars aligned for Sam Lowes in Le Mans this afternoon as the Brit broke a four-year win drought to take a memorable Moto2 victory in the 25-lap French Grand Prix.
Celebrating in style, the Marc VDS man completed a stellar weekend that saw him start his 100th intermediate-class race from the front row, having qualified in second, in addition to topping Sunday’s morning warm-up at the legendary track and becoming the most successful British podium sitter in Moto2 history.
His best race of the 2020 season to date was almost pure poetry for the fans back home as Lowes lead a British 1-2 for the opening stages.
Despite a multitude of drama and delay at the start, he quickly mastered the mixed conditions to take the lead on lap two before executing an incredible save in turn eight’s braking zone on his seventh lap, dropping him to second behind compatriot Jake Dixon.
Losing three seconds as he ran wide Lowes quickly regained his composure, keeping Dixon firmly in his sights as he began to reel him in before the unlucky Petronas rider crashed out of the lead at the final corner with four laps to go.
The 30-year-old maintained his composure in the closing stages to take his first win in 68 races - since Aragon 2016 - by the commanding margin of 3.8s and is now firmly in contention for the title fight, having closed to within 22 points of World Championship leader Luca Marini with five races still to run.
“I want to say thanks so much to every single person involved in the team to get me back fighting to win races. I’m really grateful for that. It’s been a great day and a great weekend.
“We knew that if we could keep doing good races and putting ourselves in good positions, we could win. In the last race we were close and here was one step better.
“It’s really nice for me after a few years off the top step. I’m really happy and really proud of myself.
“I feel sorry for Jake, I want to say well done to him he’s been doing very well the last few races and he was riding good then. It’s easy to crash in those conditions.
“I felt really good, apart from locking the front, I just got it a little bit wrong and just a little bit on the damp patch. You could see it coming up and I just got on the edge of it, locked the front and was lucky to stay on, so then I just took it easy.
“Jake had good pace and I didn’t want to get too close to him because when I’m behind I have a tendency to rush in a little bit, so I wanted to look after the front. I tried to keep about a second’s gap and was going to push towards the end but he was real strong and then unfortunately he went down.
“I’ve felt good all weekend and that’s three podiums in a row. I’m really happy to get this win because when you’ve had a few podiums and it’s been a long time since I’ve won a race - actually we’re going to Aragon next week which is where my last win was, so it’s nice to get it before going back there, a track that I love.
“It’s great for me to win the Shark helmets French Grand Prix, a long-time sponsor of mine and I’m just really happy about the whole weekend.”
