Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes experienced surprising amount of pain from his recently injured shoulder on day one at the Catalunya test, after having experienced a successful two-day comeback test at Jerez a week or so before.

Things improved, for him and his machine setup on day two. He ended up eighth on the combined time sheets after the culmination of the only official all-out test of the pre-season. In fairness, he even sounded upbeat in his comments about it all at the end, despite finishing the tests a little early compared to some.

“Today was good; I was fast every run and lots of 1’41s on used tyres,” Lowes told bikesportnews.com. “We finished before the end so I did not do a time attack when the track was good at the end. So we do not know how fast we could have gone. But my race pace on race tyres I think was pretty good.

“I am quite happy with today as we made a good step on yesterday. Yesterday my shoulder felt pretty bad. When we stopped for lunch we tried to ride in the afternoon. This track has so many changes of direction, so yesterday afternoon I was a bit useless. But, today I felt a lot better. We decided to finish early, and not push the bike with a time attack.

“To push the shoulder is not necessary. We have a lot of time before the first race. I think today I was good, the bike improved and I felt like I rode better, so it was a positive day.”

Lowes explained the circumstances of his crash of a few weeks ago, which occurred while riding a flat tracker at the Rocco’s Ranch training area close by the Catalunya circuit, saying, “I just fell on the shoulder, maximum was about 15 kmh. I was on the off-road bike and I just felt that when I fell down I did not have enough time to put out my hand.

“So I fell on the shoulder and did some damage to the joint at the top of the shoulder. It was nothing, really, but it has given me quite a lot of problems in this pre-season. To arrive here and be able to do this many laps, to be fast and be on the pace, is really positive for me and the team.”

Although Lowes said he is not yet in perfect shape, the big question is how will he be for racing at the end of May in Motorland Aragon, when the season starts for real? “In six weeks’ time, I do not expect any problems for the first race, which is one of the targets of this test achieved,” said Alex.

With a new bike, for 2021, Lowes felt some improvements in corner entry, which was something he had some issues with in 2020 - his first year as a KRT rider. “On corner entry I feel really strong to be honest, on the new 2021 bike, with the engine and some chassis changes, like with the swingarm, for example. I feel that I can enter the corner better, with a lot more confidence. This is really positive, especially when the track starts to get slippy. Today, when I finished, the track was still 38 degrees C, and my last run with a race tyre was 1’41.4. 41.55 for seven laps.

“I do not think I could have done this last year, in the hotter conditions. But you know, when you improve the entry you have problems on the exit… not the exit, but when you first touch the gas, when the bike is up, in this phase I am struggling a little bit. This is the area we are going to work on in the next test. I am a bit aggressive and we spin a bit too much, but if we can improve this part we can make another step.”

Lowes spoke about this aspect of his riding and set-up a little more, when asked if he was trying to get the bike upright more quickly, like his team-mate Rea does. “Yes, a little bit,” he said, before qualifying his statement a little.

“Obviously, over years of riding you have your own style, and it is important that the guys adapt the bike also to my style and not just for him. But like I said this is an area we are working on. In this area we are not doing very well at the minute but we have some ideas with Marcel, Danilo and my guys for the next test, to improve this.”