Kawasaki Racing Team Principal Guim Roda states that KRT always wanted to continue with Alex Lowes for 2024 after the announcement of a contract extension for Lowes.
Alex Lowes and the Kawasaki Racing Team announced that they would be continuing their partnership for the 2024 WorldSBK season, this would be the fifth season of the duo working together.
However, it had been rumoured that Lowes would be shipped out of Kawasaki come the end of the 2023 season. Across the paddock it was rumoured that Axel Bassani, Xavi Vierge and even Scott Redding were in talks with KRT for a 2024 WorldSBK ride.
But just before the start of the British round of the WorldSBK season Kawasaki put all the rumours to rest after announcing that Lowes would partner Jonathan Rea for next season. Alongside the announcement Guim Rode also had his say on why KRT kept Lowes and pushed the idea that they always wanted Lowes to stay and were waiting for him to re-sign for 2024.
“We are happy to keep Alex for the 2024 project and this gives us the stability we need in the current situation." said Guim Roda about Alex Lowes' contract renewal.
"The question was not if KRT was willing to continue with Alex. The question was if Alex was willing to continue with KRT, knowing the reality of the rules situation and our current performance capacity.
"Alex has the capacity to reach the required speed to try and work within that small window we have to perform at our best. Nobody in the world can doubt that Alex is always giving his best, and we have big respect for the effort he puts into it.
"We don’t have time to teach young riders how to ride the bike, as some people in the paddock suggested we do.
“Now is the time to continue working hard and with a stable base, to take out the variables and focus on what we really know to improve our bike and make a real ‘team job.’
"Alex and Johnny are competitors with each other but they are very professional and work well together. They have respect for each other and know how to extract 110% from our bike to make the best show possible.
"We have a lot of jobs to do now, so let’s create calm in the project by choosing the two best riders, then we can focus on working as hard and as well as possible.”
