Sam Lowes’ return to Moto2 action took a major knock on Saturday following a wet weather crash on the Elf Marc VDS at Motegi.

With his continued recovery from a fractured shoulder slowing his pace, and challenging weather conditions across the weekend at the Mobility Resort Motegi Circuit, the decision was taken to withdraw from Sunday’s 22-lap race.

Despite showing some decent speed in Saturday’s wet morning FP2 session, a painful highside on the exit of turn four toward the end of Q1 added to the dry conditions anticipated for Sunday, meant full-race distance would be difficult for the Brit with not enough dry track time to recover his feelings aboard the bike.

“Today was hard for me in wet conditions after not riding for so long,” Lowes explained. “I’m still working to feel comfortable on the bike.

“I didn’t have much track time in the dry and couldn’t really get a good feeling with the bike, so tomorrow’s race would be difficult.

“After speaking to the team this afternoon, we both decided that it would be best to sit tomorrow’s race out so I can arrive in Thailand next week to push for a good result.”