Voltcom Suzuki’s Alex Lowes put together two strong races yesterday at the Sepang World Superbike round, battling back from the Skyes/Biaggi melee in race two to make six and eighth-place finishes in Malaysia.

Lowes went into the round after his Suzuka Eight-Hours debut riding a different spec of GSX-R1000 and on Bridgestones instead of Pirellis but says that his confidence is now coming back on the Crescent-run bike.

“It was a difficult day but I feel like I rode really well. I’m disappointed with the sixth and eighth results on paper but riding wise I think I did a good job. Obviously I just got unlucky in the second race with the incident in turn one – it can happen anytime but when everything is going a bit uphill it seems to happen to us,” said the youngster.

“Apart from that I did my absolute best, caught up as much as possible without crashing and went forward in both races. We struggled a bit for out-and-out pace here so we tried to set our bike up for 16 laps, as it’s a bit of a peculiar track for tyre life.

“It’s been a tough weekend but I feel like I’m starting to learn how to ride in this heat a lot better and without the race two incident at the start there was the potential to battle for fourth place.

“I’m looking forward to a few weeks off before we have the last three rounds of the year and I’m hoping for a really strong finish as I’m really starting to build back some confidence and belief in myself now.”