Alex Lowes has spoken of his sheer emotion at returning to the winners’ circle in WorldSBK for the first time since 2020 with a tremendous double victory at the 2024 WorldSBK season opener at Phillip Island.

Almost four years to the day Lowes last stepped on top of the WorldSBK podium - during his debut event as a Kawasaki rider - he first repeated the feat with a hard-fought sprint to victory in Sunday’s morning’s Superpole Race.

A few hours later he’d go on to do it again in the shortened but full-points Race 2 via an outstanding outside overtake on Alvaro Bautista as they rounded the blind crest left-hander at Lukey Heights on the final lap.

A long time coming for Lowes, the wins represent only his third and fourth in 11 seasons of WorldSBK and sees him come away from the opening round of the season clutching the championship lead for the first time.

Congratulated by his twin brother Sam - making his WorldSBK debut this weekend - on the warm-down lap of the Superpole Race, Lowes admits he let the emotion flow after the race.

“It’s been an unbelievable day!” 

“Honestly, it’s been a long time since that last win, and I’ve been working. I was dead emotional; I was crying on the in lap. The guys have done a fantastic job all weekend. 

“I’m really, really, really happy.”

Having capitalised on a problem for Andrea Iannone to win the Superpole Race, Lowes’ route to victory in Race 2 was more complicated.

Though starting from pole position, Lowes was on the back foot on lap three when Toprak Razgatlioglu’s BMW let go directly in front of him, forcing him wide and towards the bottom end of the top ten.

However, an imminent red flag would allow for Lowes to reset from fifth on the grid, a chance he capitalised on as he worked his way into second place with four laps remaining.

Setting his sights on Bautista ahead, Lowes positioned himself for attack on the final lap, albeit only after surviving contact with Andrea Locatelli that he was lucky not to be eliminated in.

Undeterred, Lowes - having spotted Bautista was struggling for balance through Turns 8/9 - punished the Spaniard’s defensive inside line by hanging it around the outside instead and getting the move done on the brow of the apex.

“The second race was chaos from the start. It was a little bit delayed, and in the first part of the race Toprak’s bike blew up. I was nearly off track, I did well to stay on. 

“Then, Jonathan had a big crash, so I hope he’s okay. I was dropping back a little bit, but just before the red flag, I had a couple of good sectors to get back on my brother. 

“I had some good speed, and the temperature was down a little bit. My focus in the restart was to make a good start, put myself in the first three or four positions.

“I knew Toprak wasn’t there, and when he is, you have to ride a little bit more defensively because he’s always going to have a pass. Once I got settled into the race, I was struggling to stay with Bautista a little bit and Michael.

“Locatelli passed me at Turn 4. He was going to hit the back of Bautista, so he went wide and then I managed to stay on the line, stay close to Alvaro because, in my head, I was thinking he was struggling to enter the corner because the grip was going. 

“I knew I could be really fast through Turn 8 and into Turn 9. This was my chance to pass him and try to stop the bike into Turn 10 and 11. 

“I had a little plan, and it went quite well. In the end, I had a lot more grip than Alvaro which allowed me to make this pass.”