Alex Lowes was able to build a “productive” WorldSBK test at Phillip Island despite having a difficult opening day.

Lowes went to Australia for the final test of the WorldSBK preseason after a pair of European tests that were heavily disrupted by rain. It meant the track time in Australia was of particular importance, and for Lowes it meant a chance to dial-in his base setup which didn’t work initially.

“Productive test,” Lowes told WorldSBK.com.

“Obviously, not so many laps over in Europe this year, so we arrived at the [Phillip Island] test with a new base setting on the bike. But due to the layout of the circuit here, and the harder tyres, it didn’t quite work. 

“We’ve had some things to try, some items to go through, so I’ve been trying to work through all that. 

“Every session got a bit better, the final session of the test we tried to do a longer run; the target was to be consistent [because] it’s a long race around here without the pit stop, so working on the consistency. 

“Some parts of the track I’m struggling a little bit; we tried some things on the bike, some better, some worse. We’ve got a couple of days now to piece it together, but happy with the work done, reasonably good over the race distance, and in the mix going into the first round of the championship.”

Speaking more specifically about the parts of the track he wanted to improve in, Lowes identified sector three, home to the Lukey Heights left-hander where he memorably passed Alvaro Bautista around the outside for the win in 2024.

“Try to improve a little bit in sector three,” Lowes replied when asked what he’d like to improve on between now and the first race on 21 February.

“I was pretty useless this afternoon in that part of the track, which normally I’m quite fast, so I was clearly doing something wrong there. So I’ll try to improve that. 

“I’ve been doing this a long time, I try not to get too excited at the test, I didn’t make any mistakes, quite constant, and now we need to find that little bit more performance for this first race of the year.”

Lowes added that a podium is a possibility for him this weekend, although he feels a number of riders will be in the battle for the final podium position behind Nicolo Bulega and Sam Lowes.

“I’ve had a lot worse tests in Phillip Island and managed to get on the podium, if not a bit better,” Alex Lowes said. “I would say it’s probably one of my more positive two days of test. So, why not? 

“I think we shouldn’t be too far away, there’s 10 guys that could be on the podium – we know how tight World Superbike is. It’s going to be a dogfight. 

“I think Bulega is going to have the pace to go away; maybe my brother [Sam Lowes] can go with him, hopefully, and the rest of us are going to have a ding-dong and a big fight. That’ll suit me, so I’m looking forward to it.”